On October 23, 2022, Sulong UBC hosted its 3rd annual General Assembly (GA). The full-day program opened with an assessment of the last year of Sulong’s activities. Highlights include:
- 100% growth in membership over the program period (from October 2021)
- Increased solidarity relationships with organizations on the UBC campus
- Participation in 3 national congresses (Anakbayan Congress 2021, ILPS Canada Assembly 2022, BAYAN Congress 2022)
- Identified need for more proactive social investigation and class analysis to understand and respond to the issues of Filipino youth in our community
We also received solidarity messages from seven individuals and organizations:
- Founding member Lara Maestro
- Anakbayan Canada
- UBC Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights
- UBC Social Justice Centre
- International League of People’s Struggle—Canada (ILPS)
- National Network for Agrarian Reform Advocates—Youth (NNARA)
- BAYAN Canada
These organizations and many more have supported the growth of Sulong UBC since our founding in 2018 and affiliation to Anakbayan Canada in 2020. The statement from NNARA-Youth especially linked the conditions of Filipino migrants in Canada to the conditions of peasants and farm workers in the Philippines, and reaffirmed our commitment to the campaign to Free Karina dela Cerna, a youth peasant advocate who has been a political prisoner since 2019.
Our members also shared our journeys to activism, sharing the development from individual agitation about politics to the collective power of organizing. We built on this momentum to learn about the realities of Filipino migration and practice planning mass campaigns to sharpen our analysis and advance our work even further.
Our GA program continued with the ratification of our by-law amendments and our new General Program of Action (GPOA). Over the 2022-23 program period, our aims are to Reject and Resist the US-Marcos II-Duterte Regime, Support the Rights & Welfare of Filipino Youth, and Advance the Anti-Imperialist Youth Movement. These campaigns will be fulfilled through our educational, political, and organizational activities.
We closed the GA by electing our new Executive Committee. Our elections were vibrant, showing the engaged participation of every GA attendee in our democracy. A warm welcome and congratulations to the new Executive Committee of Sulong UBC:
Chairperson: Jestinne
Secretary General: Kai
Finance Officer: Justin
Campaign Officers: Lovely, Mari, Grace, and Nash
And, of course, the night ended with a cultural night showcasing the artistic side of propaganda for the people. We celebrated our movement and our people’s history of struggle through songs and poetry. If you weren’t able to make our GA this year, we hope to see you at our next one, as Sulong UBC continues to expand boldly and struggle militantly in the light of the national democratic youth struggle!
Lumalakas, lumalawak, lumalaban! Anakbayan!