YCW India is committed to Gender equality and empowerment of young women and men……

National level 2 days formation

    YCW India celebrated the International Women Day on 6^th and 7^th March at Thanjavur, Tamil Nadu, India. We organised two activities. The first activity was 2 days national level training session on 6^th and 7^th March. It was organised at the Pastoral Centre at Thanjavur. The topics of the training were “women’s Rights and strengthening the second line leaders”. 37 YCW members from 9 district movements participated in the program. 11 participants were young women.

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(Delegates of the NFS 2010)

On the 1^st day of the training, Ms. Aruna, a lawyer, presented the problems of women in general and young women in particular in India. We went into the workshop and deepened the problems through discussion and sharing. We discovered that young women do not have the equal right with young men, young women do hard work in the work place and home and work for more than 15 hours and have no freedom to choose their own life.

Mr. Panneer Selvam, a lawyer, presented the rights of women and the laws that give protection to the women in India. Then we again went into workshop to deepen our knowledge on the rights of women and the laws that provide these rights. We also discovered that many laws that give rights and protection to women are not implements. Therefore, we decided that as a young worker movement we have to force the government to implement the existing laws that provide equal rights and protection to women. We also decided that education and empowerment of young women is very important to create equality of men and women in the society and in YCW. In order to achieve this we decided to reemphasis the equality of men and women in our programs and actions. In our work place also we decided to develop more actions to achieve equal minimum wage which is part of our international campaign for Social Protection.

      On the 2^nd day of the training, Shajin Raj and Kumar, former YCW leaders, shared how they developed their leadership capacities through the actions of YCW. They underlined that YCW India is giving opportunities to all young workers to develop their leadership capacities through actions. The delegates raised questions and clarifications on their sharing. The delegates affirmed their commitment to the national plan of action in their working places to achieve social protection which will empower all young men and women.