Rome 57: a Large International Gathering

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By Marlyse Thommen

First International Team elected - 1957

The year 1957 was when I discovered the YCW in school at the age of 14. Jeanine, a friend who was already an activist in a grassroots group, asked me to help her fill out an enquiry that the movement was conducting nationwide on wages and money. It was my first invitation to observe and form an opinion: SEE, JUDGE...

Shortly afterwards, she told me that the movement was organizing a large international gathering that year with delegates from every country: it was ROME 57!

To help fund the delegates' trip, we had to come up with activities that would raise money: for example, collecting aluminum bottle caps, gathering them so we could sell them in bulk instead of throwing them away. It never would have covered a train ticket to Rome, but we collected and collected... and proudly made our small contribution.

Not only was I invited to contribute my small part, but Jeanine added: we even have a delegate for our federation. She lives not far from me, come with me, I'll take you to see her and introduce you. Together we went to Marie Rose's house, the delegate, who was in fact the leader of Jeanine's group.

After the summer, the YCW released a record on which you could hear the gathering itself. Listening to that record, which so perfectly captured the atmosphere of enthusiasm that must have reigned in Rome, was literally exhilarating for us! To this day, I remember the moment when the names of the young men and women who were going to travel to other countries to help start and develop the movement were called out, and the applause that followed!

Marie Rose later became a national fulltimer in France and later married Jack Salinas. Between the 3rd International Council in Bangkok and the 4th International Council in Beirut, Jack and Angélina de Oliveira from Brazil were responsible for training within the International YCW. They were in charge of the training course held in Chile at the end of 1968 to prepare participants for international responsibilities.

It was a very memorable seminar for all participants, and I was one of them! Ten years had passed between my first encounter with the movement in 1957 and the training course in Chile in 1968. And in turn, I was invited to take on international responsibilities and became a member of the team elected at the Beirut Council in 1969 until the 5th Council in Linz in 1975.

I am writing these lines with great emotion: Marie Rose passed away yesterday (July 23, 2025)!  Thank you Jeanine, Marie Rose, Jack, Angélina (who also passed away recently) and all the activists and leaders who came before me, accompanied me, and helped me to gradually live a life of activism and leadership with and within a movement that leaves its mark for life. Thank you to all those who have continued since then and who continue to give so many young people around the world this opportunity to act together for a just world!

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About the International Cardijn Association

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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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