Regional Youth Committee present in the conversation on youth, work and the solidarity and cooperative economy in Colombia.
Julia Cófreces, secretary of the Federation of Self-Managed Cooperatives of Buenos Aires participated as a panelist in the framework of the "Cycle of solidarity gatherings" organized by the Huil Association of Cooperatives and Solidarity Companies.
During the event, ILO statistics on youth employability were shared at the global and regional levels, which provide the following overview of youth: there are currently 267 million young people in the world who neither study nor work and this number increases year by year. year. In turn, young people are the most exposed to precarious, informal jobs, without any type of social protection. At the regional level, the youth unemployment rate is three times that of adults, and 60% of young people who work do so informally. In turn, there are 23 million young people throughout Latin America and the Caribbean who neither study nor work. Training for work demands increasing computer skills and abilities, in many cases accentuating inequalities and the digital divide.
In the framework of the discussion, it was analyzed and proposed to dimension how, from the cooperative movement, do we have the tools to promote initiatives that promote the labor and educational inclusion of the young population?
- promote cooperative work as a labor option for youth, accompanying and providing assistance in the creation of associative projects made up of young people.
- Create and promote sources of financing for the initial capitalization of these projects: subsidies and credits for the purchase of supplies, tools and machinery.
- Promote cooperative education so that cooperativism becomes a viable employment option for youth. Encourage the creation of youth representation spaces within the cooperative sector to generate more integration, dialogue and inclusion within the sector.
- Work jointly with other youth organizations (student, union, social) for the elaboration of public policies and legislative proposals for labor inclusion.