Giorgio Casula, always PRESENT!

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Yes, we still need to talk about our friend and activist Giorgio. He left us on Sunday 23 June!

But he will always be PRESENT!

Giorgio, from a family originally from Sardinia, started working at the age of 14. His school of life and struggle was the Belgian YCW, where he was an activist and national leader in the 1970s and 80s, and the European YCW, where he was leader from 1987 to 1991, as part of the International Team of the IYCW.

Married to Joaninha, former president of the Portuguese YCW, they are the parents of a son Vasco and a daughter Inès.

Giorgio, who became a Portuguese citizen, was an activist and leader in the CGTP trade union.

Giorgio and Joaninha also founded and ran a reception and social and professional integration centre for migrants from former Portuguese colonies on the outskirts of Lisbon.

Giorgio and Joaninha have always maintained contact with the current and former leaders of the Portuguese YCW.

In recent years, Giorgio has shown great interest in the IYCW's project to activate former YCW members in order to support the (re)development of the IYCW: he actively participated in the 2019 European Colloquium in Herzogenrath, Germany, which brought together the leaders of the European YCW and around twenty former members who were open to supporting the (re)development of the IYCW in Europe. But illness forced him to withdraw his offer of service.

Giorgio is a shining witness to this process of emancipation and promotion of the person (a young worker is worth more than all the gold in the world!) against the grain of what the dominant system is trying to impose.

He is a shining witness to this process, which awakens a clear awareness of the mechanisms of alienation and oppression (See-Judge-Act), avoiding all paternalism and manipulation ("among them, by them, for them!"). It encourages liberating friendship, solidarity and collective action (all together, all together!).

He articulates the struggle from the local to the international level, and warmly celebrates all the small and big victories of the day.

Giorgio is a luminous, moving and warm witness to this process! He has been a "landmark" for many, a beacon that shows the way that is "right", "true" and that inspires and reassures the activist!

Throughout his life and during the ordeal of his illness, he always showed an astonishing dynamism and a joy in living and fighting!

He will continue to inspire us!

Thank you GIO!

Our best wishes to Joaninha, her children and her friends!

 

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About the International Cardijn Association

cardijn

The International Cardijn Association (ICA) is a non-profit organization whose purpose is to serve the present and future generations of young workers throughout the world.

Officially created in September 1998 on the initiative of the International YCW, the ICA mission is to provide financial support to the projects implemented by young workers in order to improve their capacities to take responsibilities and to change their living and working conditions. In this direction those young people can find the place they deserve in society and the dignity inherent in all human beings.

Throughout his life, Cardijn, who founded the International YCW in 1957, never ceased to disseminate his message that “Each young worker is worth more than all the gold in the world.” Convinced that this message is still true today, the ICA wants to help young people – apprentices or unemployed, domestic workers, workers in the informal economy, casual workers, those exploited in export-processing zones, those excluded from society – to carry out projects which will allow them to live with dignity.

 For its functioning, the ICA relies on a team of volunteers who are involved in raising funds. Those funds come from donations by people or movements wishing to support a just cause: that of young workers. The capital is invested ethically and the interests are used to fund projects which are initiated by movements or groups of young workers who struggle to change their living and working conditions. Decent jobs, reasonable working hours, adequate salaries, weekly day-offs, the eradication of sexual and moral harassment, social protection for all … are the focus of the struggle to be carried out in a globalized world, where human beings often feel powerless when faced with walls of injustice.
 
By providing financial support to young workers’ projects, the ICA simply wants to contribute to building a society with more justice and a world with more solidarity.

 

 

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