Training at ITCILO: What’s new for workers in 2024?

ACTRAV INFO: ACTRAV Turin has launched few months ago, its core training programme for workers’ activities for 2024.  What's new this year?

Vera Dos Santos Costa: The objective of the 2024-25 core programme is to support strong and representative trade unions worldwide. The aim is to empower workers from around the world in a multinational and multicultural setting, using a variety of learning formats, including face-to-face and e-learning opportunities. There will be four Global Workers Academies, six Regional Academies and two Transversal Regional Academies. 

One of the innovations this time is a transversal approach. The idea is that the same academy is delivered in an asynchronous manner in the five regions, (the Arabic region, Africa, Asia and the Pacific, Europe and Central Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean). Elements of the course (examples, exercises, webinars, language) are adapted to each region, as appropriate. We will run two transversal regional academies (e.g. ten activities).

ACTRAV INFO: The Programme started in February with the Global Workers’ Academy on Transitions. What were the results?
 

VSC: This blended Academy covered four transitions that are challenging the world of work: the just transition, the digital transition, the transition created by Artificial Intelligence (AI), and the transition from informality to formality. 

Workers have the necessary competences and resources to respond to the multiple and cross-cutting challenges provoked by these transitions, but they need to learn how to apply them. This is what the Academy aims to help with.

We can proudly say that we achieved this objective.  We know this from the examples of subsequent activities that participants have shared:

• A participant from Barbados took part in a TV debate about Artificial Intelligence and revealed that, thanks to the training, they have developed a strategic plan for addressing AI at work.
• A participant from Algeria developed a video during the training to promote the transition to formality for platform workers in the delivery sector.
• A participant from Gambia gained the confidence to immediately implement the action plan she developed during her course - a 2-day training for women in the informal economy and integrated aspects of the transition to formalisation.

ACTRAV INFO: What do you hope these training courses will achieve?

VSC: The training activities address the main challenges facing the world of work within the framework of the ILO, the expertise of our ACTRAV Team in Geneva and the trade unions’ perspectives. They offer innovative approaches that can help workers become agents of change, by fostering knowledge, developing new skills and reinforcing competences.

Using this transformative approach, we ensure that the workers on our courses are equipped to nurture change in a wide range of areas and to use ILO’s instruments and policy as tools and strategies to advance social justice.

ACTRAV INFO: These courses are being run in a blended format that combines distance learning and face-to-face participation. Why did you choose this approach?

VSC: A blended approach permits ITCILO ACTRAV to reach out to more workers worldwide. Our approach is tutor-led: there is always a tutor supporting, stimulating, and facilitating the learning of our participants. This is particularly helpful to those who feel less comfortable on digital platforms. The self-learning parts of the courses consist of initial information, resources, and references. We complement this with live webinars where we share best practices and upgrade knowledge. Some of the courses also have a face-to-face component, and the main aim of this is to encourage the application of the new competences and knowledge and to support the strategies workers’ development.

ACTRAV is very much concerned with digital inclusion. We continually explore new ways to improve workers’ digital literacy and to find new and better ways to include them. For example, this year we will explore micro-learning possibilities.

ACTRAV INFO: Workers’ organizations are very interested in training. What message do you have for those who want to take part in these courses?

VSC: Workers’ education has always been at the heart of trade unions’ fundamental objectives. Today, more than ever, workers’ education needs to be encouraged and positioned as a strategic tool to ensure that trade unions remain relevant, resilient, and sustainable. 

Capacity building of workers is key to ACTRAV’s work. Through publications, events, knowledge-sharing and training activities, ACTRAV offers a wide range of different tools to empower workers in the campaign for greater social justice.

Participation in our courses is open to all workers’ organisations worldwide. Interested organisations should contact ACTRAV and the Secretariat of the ILO Workers’ Group (genevaoffice@ituc-csi.org). More information can be found on the ACTRAV website.