22 August, 2018A new project aimed at young people has just been launched in Latin America and the Caribbean. With the support of DGB Bildungswerk from Germany, IndustriALL is committed to empowering youth.
The first national seminars that are part of IndustriALL’s Regional Youth Education and Empowerment Project for Latin America and the Caribbean took place from 26 July to 10 August this year, and others will follow until 2020.
IndustriALL and DGB Bildungswerk, which is the support organization of German trade union centre, DGB, are organizing two-day seminars in Argentina, Brazil, Mexico and Nicaragua. Their purpose is to kick-start the project aimed at training young trade union leaders who are involved and engaged in their unions as well as in IndustriALL’s global structures.
“The fact that they are here is because someone in their unions is betting on them having what it takes to become a trade union leader. I have just turned 66 years old. We need to promote the generational renewal of which we talk so much,” said the Vice-President of IndustriALL’s Executive Committee, Raúl Mathiú, at the opening of the first seminar which took place in Argentina.
IndustriALL’s regional secretary, Marino Vani, together with Julieta Avalos, IndustriALL’s regional advisor, will be mentoring the young people over a period of three years during which they will draw up a trade union action plan with a view to developing a youth policy that also promotes gender equality.
Each country will have its own coordinator who will be responsible for monitoring the whole process. The group of coordinators will meet twice a year to articulate the work at the regional level. The first meeting of this group will take place on 16-17 August in the regional office in Uruguay.
This meeting will provide an opportunity to analyse the challenges the project will face in the different countries and to determine which activities they will undertake in order to achieve the goals for the second stage of the project in each country, starting in September this year.
For DGB, the project is also intended to allow young men and women to shape the political agenda in Latin American society in order to help the region become more representative and inclusive for future generations. It is also proposed that by 2020 at least half of the trade unions participating in the project should have created new youth secretariats and formal representative structures.
“Young people in the region will have great opportunities to get training and to strengthen their unions. The project will help build up their leadership skills and empower them so that they can face up to the challenges of today and tomorrow. The central axis of this project is to develop policies for the inclusion of youth, structures designed to ensure youth participation in the unions and to train people who have the capacity to become leaders with a national, regional and global vision,” said Marino Vani, IndustriALL’s regional secretary in conclusion.