Last Friday 15th February, the International Secretariat (IS) team members met with representatives of World Solidarity Movement (WSM) as part of the process of integration of the new IS members. The meeting took place at the IYCW office in Schaerbeek, Belgium.

The WSM representatives were Bart, Ben and Jeroen. Bart and Ben are responsible for WSM’s international action department while Jeroen is a north-south cooperation program coordinator. All the IS outgoing and new team members were present at the meeting.

There were two strategic items on the agenda of the meeting: international political action and the cooperation program between WSM and the IYCW.

The IYCW and WSM agreed to strengthen strategic cooperation in political action at the international level and also to consolidate the organization at the national level. Such cooperation will be developed in our social protection campaign and in our action for just work for young workers and gender equality, a cross-cutting issue within the movement.

More concretely, the IYCW and WSM agreed on joint participation at the International Labor Conferences (ILC) and other international forums.

This is an implementation of the results of the 13th International Council of the IYCW in Accra, Ghana in August 2012. The International Council adopted four campaign themes, namely social protection, just work, gender equality, and quality education.

Above all, the International Secretariat expects that this collaboration will lead to positive impact on the campaign at the national movements level down to the base level.