The Youth Global Awareness Programme (YGAP)

YGAP

The Youth Global Awareness Programme (YGAP) is a vibrant exposure and exchange programme for young staff members of IFWEA affiliates and associated labour organisations. It takes place annually and is hosted by the IFWEA Secretariat in Cape Town, South Africa at the historic labour heritage site, Community House. See below to learn more.

YGAP video

YGAP 2024

YGAP 2024 takes place between 20 October and 1 November at Community House in Cape Town. The theme is Education for Empowerment.

Meet the 2024 YGAP participants

Why YGAP?

The programme is intended to develop the next generation of worker educators who can provide the global labour movement with the education required to tackle the challenges of the 21st century. 

Who can attend YGAP?

Young educators, trade union and youth leaders between the ages of 18 and 35 years, who are computer literate, speak English and are committed to building a democratic labour movement.

How long has YGAP run?

YGAP has been convened annually since 2012 and has thus far developed more than 100 young internationalists from 15 different countries, including Zimbabwe, Pakistan, Malawi, South Africa, Palestine, Sweden and Sri Lanka.

What is the aim of the YGAP programme?

The programme creates awareness and produces worker educators and organisers who can confidently design and deliver education on global solidarity in their home countries. It nurtures future worker educators.

New publication on YGAP

“It’s a life-changing point for me”: Critical consciousness, collective empowerment and global awareness as activist identity change in ‘popular education’ is a new publication by Sarah Jay, Maura Adshead and Sahra Ryklief, published by the European Journal of Psychology of Education. This mixed method study draws on the Social Identity Approach to Education and Learning and proposes that the participatory, peer-to-peer learning during IFWEA’s YGAP leads to activist identity change, where critical consciousness, collective empowerment and global awareness develop as group norms. Find out more and download the study here

How has the programme been structured?

Week 1: 
Participants attend a seminar programme at Community House, Cape Town, South Africa, facilitated by IFWEA Secretariat staff with input from participating IFWEA affiliates. The seminar programme encourages reflection through informed and purposeful interaction between the participants.

Week 2:
Placements are created for participants to immerse themselves in practical grassroots experience through exposure to organisations working on issues relevant to labour and social movements. Areas of interest include labour research; labour and community media; labour, rural and community organising; climate change; and gender.

Postcards:
The programme concludes with participants producing an educational, multi-media postcard to take back to their organisations. Participants receive guidance on cultural sensitivity and media ethics before preparing their postcards. You can view the postcards from 2012 through to 2023 on our YouTube channel here.

Contact

To find out more, please contact Saliem Patel (Programme Manager) at Saliem@lrs.org.za or Renaldi Prinsloo (IFWEA Education Online Curriculum Developer) at renaldi@ifwea.org