UNI Communicators' Forum

***NEWS UPDATE, JULY 4th 2007***

Unfortunately, David Williams from USDAW, UK, will not be able to run the UNI Bridge project this year as originally stated Friday 8th June.

We are sad to loose him, as his kindness, experience and skills were perfectly fit for this job! Hopefully next time, though.

Since more candidates were still willing to help us create websites in the Caribbean, we drew a new name from the hat this morning, using Philip Bowyer's (UNI's Deputy General Secretary) innocent hands.

Philip drew the name of Pascal Arnold from the Communication Workers' Union in Switzerland. Pascal is a young webmaster of 23 years old and speaks German, French and English fluently. He will be given the task of setting up three websites for unions in Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados and the Bahamas.

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The UNI Communicators’ Forum has selected two sites for this years Bridge Project, Thailand and the Caribbean, to help bring website development and maintenance to unions and their members.

David Williams of the UK union USDAW will be assisting unions in the Caribbean to establish websites using the latest available technology and provide training to union officers on thinking web, writing for the web and coordinating web activities to promote the benefits of unionism.

In Thailand, Dietmar Weiss of the Austrian union VIDA will share his expertise with Thai unions in assisting their web communications. 

UNI is committed to help bridge the digital divide for unions and their members through the Bridge Project. To date unions in Peru and Ghana have received the benefits of the project, gaining skills, technical and functional support and the capacity to communicate through the web.

“It can be challenging traveling to new areas and overcoming some of the infrastructure obstacles to provide unions with these communication tools. But the effort is very worthwhile and rewarding, both personally and for the benefit of workers and their unions.”, said Miguel Loriz Toro who led the last project to Peru. 

Congratulations to Dieter and David and we wish you well in building the bridge.

UNI is considering expanding the project to another 3 sites this year.