Autonomía is a one-year program!
Women from Autonomía celebrate their first anniversary at the Maxim Theater. Picture: Sandra Ritter
A year ago, seven of us founded the platform cooperative for cleaning. Now 35 women work as cleaners through Autonomía. Find out what it takes to set up a business and how we want to ensure long-term success in our exclusive cooperative recipe.
250 grams of confidence and 250 grams of discipline for the dough
Picture: Sandra Ritter
Sounds banal, but it's true. Trust in yourself and your own abilities is just as important as trust in your colleagues. Last but not least, it is important to have confidence in your mission and vision. Managing a company requires a great deal of commitment and perseverance. It is extremely important to have this discipline.
Picture: Sandra Ritter
Social competence as a topping
In a cooperative, the greatest internal risk is interpersonal cooperation. A cooperative management culture needs to be learned. A proactive communication culture and a constructive approach to conflict are essential for this. To strengthen community building and a sense of belonging, we are currently developing a coaching model that we use to train each other.
Picture: Sandra Ritter
A blend of knowledge and expertise
With Autonomía, we have built up a company where a large share of the cake goes to us cleaners. This is only possible if we also take responsibility and work independently and the administration works as efficiently as possible in the background.
Preheat the oven with solidarity
Of course, the development of Autonomía only worked because people believed in us and many actively helped. These include the following fantastic women: Esther Baur, Nathalie Caballero, Hillmann Verena, Marisol Keller, Marti Madeleine and Nina Meili. Without their active support, Autonomía would not be what it is today. A big thank you also goes to Martin Solms and Jürg Rebsamen from innovage.ch and to the Zurich Jobs Foundation, who believed in us as funding organizations and supported us financially.
Picture: Sandra Ritter
A long cooking time
The sustainability of Auonomía's success will become clear in 2024. Then we will have to function without the support of FRAUEN 50Plus. Until we are ready to run the cooperative together, we will need close specialist support from FRAUEN 50Plus next year. They are dependent on financial support for this.
Setting up social enterprises by and for women is possible and - more importantly: it pays off!
Your AUTONOMIA Team
Proofreader: Nina Meili