Colombia : YCWers from different generations met to prepare the YCW Centenary

Also available:  ES   FR 

In Bogotá, Colombia, on 25 August 2024, we held the first local meeting of YCW members from different generations; activists of the movement from Bogotá, Facatativá and Funza, whose experiences took place between 1976 and 1988. They gathered to celebrate the INTERNATIONAL YCW DAY, on the day of IYCW’s official creation, in St. Peter's Square in Rome in 1957, an event attended by young workers from Colombian YCW, through Miguel Reyes who was among the delegations of the 85 attending. We also remembered the life of ABEL GIORDANA, a priest, adviser to the National YCW since the 1960s, who ensured the presence of the movement in the country during thirty years, through the follow-up and integral formation of young people and other priests. Abel died on 25/08/1989.

Year 1957. At the bottom left, Abel Giordana. And, on the right, Miguel Reyes

We suggested, among other proposals, to contact the YCW members of the country by different means, to carry out a national campaign in order to motivate and set up a national network, to promote local meetings, to create WhatsApp groups by generations, to promote activities for 13/11/2024 (birth of Cardijn), to hold a national meeting in 2025, to create a fund to support the participation in the celebration of the 100th IYCW Anniversary and to support the process of YCW extension in the country.

 

Whatsapp

Related Articles

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.

 

 

ICA News
  English