Associates

portrait of Geoff Brown  Geoff Brown (BA PGCE)

An experienced tutor, fluent in a number of European languages, Geoff is responsible for training boards in co operatives and across the NHS in chairing and meetings skills. The depth and breadth of Geoff’s experience in co operatives and social enterprise across the new Europe is enviable. He has worked on and co-ordinated a number of international projects in South Asia, Europe and the former USSR.

Geoff co ordinated the EU-supported ‘Cocade’ project which developed a co operative learning & development curriculum for adult education across Europe, and was co-author of its Facilitator Toolkit. He has written, organised and taught a wide range of courses including industrial relations, economics, globalisation, tackling racism, equal opportunities, health and safety, employment law, and tutor training. Geoff is a partner of the Labour and Society Foundation.

Vipin Chauhan1Vipin Chauhan (B.A., G.D.C.E., M.A) 

Vipin is an independent consultant, trainer and researcher and specialises in working with voluntary, community and public sector organisations. His main areas of professional interest and expertise lie in: capacity building training, mapping and scoping studies, project evaluations, youth and community development, BME communities, Southern perspectives in global education, equality, diversity and inclusion and management development. Vipin has worked on a range of projects as an Associate of the Co-operative College, including: 

 1. The development and delivery of DRIVE, a capacity building training programme for staff and volunteers of budding social enterprises.

2. Participative action research leading to the development of a toolkit for Football Supporters Trusts.

3. A field-based analysis of the training and support needs of the cooperative movement in Rwanda.

4. Training and development work on the Fair and Square Project looking at the issue of fair-trade, international development and global education.

Vipin is also an Associate Lecturer in the Faculty of Health and Life Sciences, De Montfort University; an Associate Lecturer at the Institute of Lifelong Learning, Leicester University; an external examiner for the Dip HE in Community Work at Turning Point, Goldsmiths College, University of London and recently taught on the ‘Youth and Community Work’ foundation degree at Ruskin College, Oxford.

Norman Chipakupaku

Rowshan Hannan

Barbara Rawlings

portrait of Cilla Cilla Ross (BA, MA, DPhil, ILT)

Cilla Ross has worked across the higher education, trade union and community education sectors for the last 25 years. In addition to working with and supervising students who have ‘returned to learn’ right through to postgraduates, Cilla has designed, managed and delivered innovative projects throughout the European community. Cilla has been responsible for curriculum design, e-learning and blended learning innovation and has taught, written and researched extensively on lifelong learning, globalisation and the changing nature of work. Cilla has also acted as a national and international evaluator for agencies such as the WEA, Union Learning Fund, UNISON, AMICUS and the ILO.

Currently Cilla is working on developing global labour and capacity building programmes with UK trade unions as well as international development work with the Co-operative College. As a College Associate Cilla has been working on the SGA programme on a number of initiatives and has recently delivered Co-op programmes for Twin Trading in Ghana and Tanzania.

portrait of Stirling Smith Stirling Smith has worked in adult and further education for twenty five years, in the UK and twenty other countries, as a teacher and manager, and in project design and evaluation.

He has undertaken assignments for, among others, the International Labour Organisation, the British Council, the Department for International Development and the Trades Union Congress. Stirling has written extensively about trade unions, child labour, health and safety at work and the impact of HIV/AIDS on the workplace. His education materials have been translated into more than ten languages.

Louise Taplin (MPhil) is an Associate of the Co-operative College, involved in a number of initiatives including the UK schools and Young Co-operatives programme, ‘Fair and Square’ food sustainability project, and Co-op Africa. Louise has extensive international experience in Fairtrade, ethical consumerism, global citizenship education and international development. Previous roles include Sales and Marketing Manager of Divine Chocolate, the Uk’s leading Fairtrade chocolate company, and Campaigns Manager of Trading Visions, Divine’s sister educational charity working in partnership with Kuapa Kokoo co-operative in Ghana. Louise has spent time volunteering internationally, as a teacher in India and with the Central American Network of Cocoa Producers and other conservation projects in Costa Rica and Mexico. Louise received a Masters degree in Development Studies from the University of Cambridge in 2001.