Component 12 leadership development & education initiative the catalyst for recent learning tour to Cuba

Your Component 12 Executive spent a number of months earlier this year outlining plans for our education tour of Cuba to local executives and members. You told us you wanted to hear about the outcomes of the tour. In the coming weeks and months, we’ll be charting our experiences and lessons learned in a series of posts on the Component 12 page of the BCGEU website.

Here’s some background on the rationale for the education tour.

Leadership development & education initiative:
One of your component executive’s key goals is enhanced leadership development and education. (The exec is made up of local chairs and additional representatives from the larger locals.) We’ve been moving toward this goal by taking part in diverse activities. Among them workshops, training modules, planning sessions and participation in conferences in B.C., other provinces and the U.S.

When we did our research, we realized adding an education tour of Cuba was possible. It was comparable and, in some cases, less costly than other leadership training opportunities on offer.

Why an education tour to Cuba:
We chose Cuba because we wanted to present the best opportunity to our delegation to develop new perspectives and insights by having the chance to meet with community members and government agencies. We wanted to have an in depth look at the lives, experiences and struggles of the Cuban people. We hoped to learn Cuban “grassroots” methods for dealing with social, political and cultural change. We wanted to spend time in communities and observe how change has impacted people’s daily lives.

The folks who participated on the education tour have since told us they were changed by what they learned and the people they met.

We selected Cuba for another reason. We wanted to use our time productively. Marcel Hatch has organized many such tours, which other unions and labour councils have joined.

Funding our initiative:
The costs of our leadership development and education initiative have been covered by our component reserves. Each component receives funds for needs and activities, as long as they comply with the union’s financial policies. This money is separate from general operating and defence funds.

Feedback on our idea:
We’ve been happy to share our plan for the education tour to Cuba all along. We reported it to the Provincial Executive in September 2010. We also talked to local executive members. The response was supportive and encouraging when we explained the purpose of the tour.

As you may know, BCGEU activists and staff support often promote international solidarity projects. They also participate in education opportunities globally. They’ve travelled to places such as Colombia, Australia, Denmark, India, Italy, Honduras, Peru, the UK, Vietnam and Switzerland. International solidarity, human rights and a broad range of other social justice issues enjoy the backing of the BCGEU through convention policy.

What’s next:
There’s more to come and we look forward to sharing. We’ll be web-posting material about our education tour, sometimes by date and sometimes by theme. We’re also exploring other ways to share what we learned.

Check back here soon for the new segments.

(picture: Cuban boy celebrates May Day with a parade and a BCGEU banner. Photo by Ron Jetko.)