Posts from the ‘Solidarity, Spring 2009’ Category
The first issue of Solidarity, the newsletter of the Unions Aotearoa International Development Trust, is available below. This issue focuses on some of the work UnionAID partners are doing with dalit workers in Tamil Nadu and Burmese migrants on the Thai border. Stories Successful launch of UnionAID Dalit workers get organised The union is making [...]
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The UnionAID project works closely with the Madurai Women’s Development Resource Centre (also supported by NZAID through Christian World Service) which has achieved remarkable success over many years in supporting and inspiring Dalit women to organize collectively and to form sangham and women’s micro-banks. As well as being a leader of the Tribal Agricultural Women’s [...]
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My name is Kaleeswari and I live with my family in a small village on the lower hills of Kodaikanal in Tamil Nadu in South India. There are 32 families in our village and we are all poor and own no land to grow our own food. We work for higher caste people, collecting and [...]
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Burmese migrant workers in Thailand have been learning about their rights in UnionAID project training delivered by our partner, the Federation of Trade Unions of Burma. 19 training courses were held during 2008 to plantation workers in the Phawphra district where seasonal migrant workers have been subject to violence and trafficking. In total more than [...]
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A new three year UnionAID project with Burmese migrant workers will have a strong focus on leadership training for women. The project has been approved under the NZAID KOHA-PICD programme which will mean that $4 will be paid by Government for every $1 contributed by UnionAID. The project will provide leadership training, labour rights education [...]
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Saw Min Lwin is the project leader of the joint UnionAID –FTUB project in Mae Sot, Thailand. Min is well known to many unionists in Wellington because he spent six months here in 2003. Min is also the International Human Rights Director of the FTUB and has played a key role in gathering evidence of [...]
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The strong support from unions and union members for UnionAID has been very exciting and encouraging. There is clearly a strong identification with our objective of helping workers in our neighbouring countries in the Asia Pacific. And our two projects, in Tamil Nadu and in Thailand, already provide clear evidence of the benefits which can [...]
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Six young community leaders from Burma are at Victoria University for 6 months under a UnionAID project jointly funded by NZAID. The programme is divided between English language tuition and a specially designed course in development studies. The young leaders will also get first hand experience of life in New Zealand as they are staying [...]
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More than 30,000 Dalit workers in Tamil Nadu have formed local unions over the past 2 years as part of the UnionAID project with the Tamil Nadu Labour Union. 164 local unions work together under TLU leadership and 10,600 of the members are women. This is a tremendous achievement by workers who have historically been [...]
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Thanks to all our supporters in the union movement UnionAID has got off to a great start since the launch on May Day 2009. UnionAID is unique among overseas development agencies in putting workers’ rights at the centre of our work. Generous financial support from both unions and members will mean that we can develop [...]
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