News

UNI Europa Youth held its 10th annual summer school, in Albufeira, Portugal where 35 young trade unionists from 11 European countries and 17 unions learnt new skills and enhanced their presentation and negotiating skills. Practicing these skills is vital for these young people who are expected to be some of the union leaders of tomorrow.

The remote location with no distractions was ideal for concentrating on sharing ideas and informing each other of the hot issues from their own countries.

This summer school has gone from strength to strength and this was UNI Europa Youth’s 10th Summer School. The participants particularly liked the way the course agenda is not set in stone before they arrive and that they are able to take ownership of the course and shape the course to fit their needs.

Head of UNI Youth, Colin Medland said, "The enthusiasm and expertise of this year's group was apparent. Preparing youth for leadership roles in the union movement is an essential part of UNI's work. The future world of work will need strong unions and strong leaders."

Nigel Flanagan from the UNI SCORE department trained participants on organising skills and gave excellent examples of organising in Morocco. The participants were also given a task of using just a mobile phone and in as little as 4 hours produced excellent organising film clips. These films will be on the UNI Youth website shortly as they were impressive given the time they had to create them.

The summer school was a good introduction to the work of UNI Global Union and energised the young trade unionists to be more involved in European and International work.

The UNI Europa Youth Conference will take place in Dublin on 22-24 June and this school shows the level of interest for young trade unionists who are eager to be trained to be able to be more involved in their unions and eventually be in the position to take leadership positions.