COOPEDCENTER

Our Story

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T H E   T E A M

Our Founders and Partners

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Xochitl Espinosa
Founder and Executive Director
​Xochitl is the Executive Director and Founder of the Co-op Ed Center. She is also a co-founder of the Illinois Worker Cooperative Alliance and serves as a Commissioner of the Cook County Commission on Social Innovation. Previously, she was the Cooperative Project Manager/Developer at Telpochcalli Community Education Project where she organized and trained a group of immigrant women who founded “Las Luciernagas”, a food catering cooperative project. She was also a Worker Cooperative Developer Fellow at Democracy at Work Institute (DAWI). Formerly, Xochitl worked for the National Alliance of Latin America and Caribbean Communities, currently known as Alianza Americas as well as other immigrant rights organizations. Xochitl served in the Peace Corps as a small business development volunteer in Benin, West Africa and has an advanced degree in international public service from DePaul University.
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Joan Fadayiro
Board Member​
Joan is a community organizer and Co-Founder of the Cooperation for Liberation Study & Working Group in Chicago, IL. She has participated in and led struggles to improve public education, resist police violence, contend for grassroots-led political power, and most recently, secure and improve long-term affordable housing. Through her organizing, Joan recognized that many of the barriers to community participation were not lack of interest but stemmed from people’s lack of access to quality jobs and ownership of their own labor. Community members have material needs that current movements cannot ignore if they seek to grow. Thus, Joan co-founded the Cooperation for Liberation Study and Working Group to understand and build worker cooperatives as a tool for economic independence and self-determination in Black communities.
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Joanna Arellano
Board Member
Joanna  is the Communications & Development Director for Raise the Floor Alliance, where she helps create a collaborative communications strategy for workers’ rights and worker centers in Chicago. Additionally, she manages the RTF grant portfolio, engaging donors and interested stakeholders into the work of RTF. Joanna was formerly the Associate Director for the Office for Peace & Justice of the Archdiocese of Chicago where she managed the Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD) grant portfolio that funds community organizing and economic development work. She currently sits on the Board of Directors for Chicago Fair Trade and is a huge advocate for workers’ rights locally and globally. Joanna also paints and embroiders while listening to the latest on Radio Ambulante.

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