“I’m going to give an example from nature to clarify the idea of the Cooperative. For me, the Cooperative is like a big forest. Inside this forest there are many trees, and each tree, when it goes through a new experience, its roots branch out more and it becomes stronger. In this forest there are trees of the same type and there are different types, but in the end, they form one cohesive ecosystem.
When you enter the forest, each tree appears to you individually, but when you see the complete picture, you find them interconnected and harmonious. Inside this forest there is water, there is fertile soil, and there are factors that provide the conditions for the trees to grow and flourish. For me, this is the Cooperative: an environment where everything grows in complementarity and harmony.
If we talk about the ecosystem, the trees represent the provinces of the region with all their diversity, and within each province there are different models, but all are watered from the same water and benefit from the same soil. And when someone enters this forest, they can find themselves in a certain tree or even a small plant that expresses them, but when we look from above, we find a big forest , I call it the Cooperative.
And there is another feeling in the middle of this forest, like a breeze passing through it. This breeze is trust and love and cooperation. You see how one province supports another province, and how one community model supports another model, and how they complement each other. The Cooperative is not just something material; it is love and flourishing emerging from co-creation, and the feeling we feel with it is not just something we see , it is something we are living.
And look, Al Hamdulillah, when something is done from the heart, it arrives. And when something is there for us to learn from and for everyone to learn from, and that learning is shared, that thing you used to see as simple grows bigger than the imagination you had. You come and say, ‘I wasn’t expecting this thing to reach this degree.’ And sometimes the experience becomes so big that you don’t find the appropriate terms to express it. And when we try to explain what we did in the Cooperative, we find it difficult to define it, because the Cooperative is not just an activity, it is the lived experience that we are all living.”
— Ibrahim, youth co-founder, Cooperative Massarat Taalom, Larache Province, 2024
Ibrahim’s words offer one way into the forest. This documentary, posted on our Youtube channel, invites you to walk through it, to meet the people, places, and ecosystems that bring the Cooperative to life.
Documentary by: Abdelmounim Allaly
