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LabourStart: AFT Reaches Out at Home, Around the World |
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On the second day of the LabourStart conference, participants got to hear from AFT this afternoon about the challenges facing teachers in the United States and around the world.
David Dorn, director of the AFT International Affairs Department, said the AFT long has been interested in reaching out around the world. One of the most important projects in which AFT has been engaged is the AFT-Africa AIDS Program. African teachers unions with which AFT has built relationships have been affected by the AIDS crisis, as their members, their students and their students’ families and communities have been devastated by the spread of HIV and AIDS.
AFT is using organizing techniques to educate teachers in South Africa and other countries about AIDS, primarily through teacher-to-teacher education aimed at breaking the silence that surrounds AIDS and connecting people to information, counseling, testing and treatment.
AFT also is responding to a number of challenges to traditional teachers union models at home, including some with an international aspect. Large numbers of teachers, Dorn said, are migrating from countries like the Philippines, and AFT has been doing research on the effects of international teacher migration on schools in this country and abroad. AFT is actively reaching out to migrant teachers to make sure they’re protected at work and working with teacher unions in affected countries as well.
In the Middle East, teachers unions are not generally strong institutions, and many are state- or party-controlled. Yet they can be critical to building democratic societies, and AFT is engaging with teachers in Middle Eastern countries to help them build lasting institutions.
Dorn said Lebanon is one country where teachers unions are making a positive difference. Although the country is divided by religious strife, teachers of all faiths are working together, he said.
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