Co-operatives UK held its inaugural National Youth Summit in 2024, aiming to empower young people. That year it also launched its Youth Advisory Group (Yag) – and through that established a foundational platform for members aged 16–30 to engage with the co-op movement. “The key feedback from last year was that it wasn’t interactive enough … people wanted more workshop-based sessions instead of a mini-congress,” Louis Burnay, youth engagement officer at Co-operatives UK and summit programme leader, told Co-op News after the event. Agbontean made it clear that young people’s pathways into the co-op movement should sit “right at the centre of what this movement says and wants to achieve”. Due later this year, the charter sets out a series of recommendations and project proposals that will bring together Co-operatives UK, the Yag and co-op members to create better pathways.