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Rainier Cruz, Youth Vice President of UNI Apro who just returned from Singapore was happy to report that he had a successful meeting with the UNI Apro & NTUC Youth Gathering on 22nd April 2008 and the 2nd ITUC Youth Committee Meeting on 22nd April 2008. Here’s extracts of his report:- UNI Apro & NTUC Youth Gathering; There were 19 youth members from EMSEU, SBEU, SBOA, SIEU, AMMWU, UTES and UWPI who attended the meeting with the NTUC Youth. Amongst them were Luke (SIEU) and Phoebe (SBEU) activists from UNI Apro youth. I was able to share with them most of the activities of UNI-APRO Youth in the Region with emphasis on Social Movement Unionism. They were touched by UNI-APRO Youth's effort in helping our less fortunate brothers and sisters especially during times of calamities. I told them how lucky they are since they are not experiencing most of the problems we are facing. We also had exchanges on the status of youth in Singapore in contrast with other countries in the Asia Pacific Region. I shared with them our success story in organizing the youth in the Philippines and the formula on how we did it. There is a clear disparity between organizing the youth in Singapore and in developing countries such as the Philippines. They have the funds to give incentives, discounts and rewards but still there are hesitations to join the trade union movement. Our problem on the other hand is how to accommodate the increasing number of youth members who wants to join in our activities since we have limited resources. I also told them that one of the formulas we used was to create awareness on the problems facing the society and the trade union as a venue to make a difference. Young people who want to stand up and make a difference should join the trade union. I was also told that they don't have a formal UNI-SLC Youth so there is no formal channel for the youth in UNI-SLC to conduct special programmes. As they were really touched and encouraged by my presentation, I encouraged them to play a more prominent role in UNI Apro and in UNI-SLC since they all signify their interest in wanting to participate in UNI Apro Youth activities. 2nd ITUC-AP Youth Committee Meeting; The ITUC meeting on the other hand was very fruitful. Bro.Tashiyuki Wakatsuki, Youth Director for ITUC-AP Youth organized the meeting. I was able to establish a lot of connection from other youth groups (some of them are also affiliates of UNI) and some from other GUFs. I introduced to them the UNI-APRO Youth (our goals, objectives, structure, how we network, etc) and some of our activities. I received a lot of good feedbacks saying that they were quite impressed with UNI-APRO Youth. As a matter of fact they wanted to have some sort of collaboration with some of these projects and activities. They also wanted to implement some of our unique programs such as celebrating your birthday with the less fortunate children, union goes to campus and radio, etc. I also encourage them to help us raise funds to be able to sustain some of our projects such as the feeding and scholarship programs. One observation is that the youth committees of ITUC and some GUFs are not yet as established compared to ours as they are only starting their networking to build youth committees. The meeting also touched on the work ITUC-AP and the youth section in the region as well as updates on the changes taking place within the organizations after the merger. With a larger membership, it is hoped that the ITUC will continue to strengthen and with the GUFs, represent the global workers trade unions to another higher level.