Established in 2021 by the 22nd Congress of the International Federation of Actors, FIA Future Now is the young members committee of the International Federation of Actors. It is made up of 29 young activists who are themselves members of 16 unions belonging to FIA.
FIA Future Now missions include organizing more young workers in the industry, getting young members more involved in member unions of FIA and in the federation itself, and making young workers’ issues a priority at national and international levels.
During its first meetings, members of the group quickly identified visits to schools as a good first focus area for FIA Future Now and a good way to meet its missions. Discussions highlighted how school visits can efficiently help organise young workers in the industry and better identify the challenges and concerns of young performers. Another realization was that while some unions have been visiting schools for a long time, others have not or are just beginning to do so. The group therefore decided to organise an online workshop on school visits to encourage more unions to hold such visits.
FIA Future Now workshop on Visits to Schools took place on April 24 and was open to all young members of unions belonging to FIA. Twenty-two persons attended the event, mostly members of FIA Future Now but also a few people joining from outside the group. The online workshop lasted two hours and was divided into two parts.
The first half of the workshop was dedicated to presentations by three unions already successfully organizing visits to schools: Equity in the UK, Kunstenbond in the Netherlands, and American Equity Association (AEA) in the United States. The speakers – Rosie Archer and Steffan Blayney for Equity UK, Bilal Bachir for Kunstenbond, and Jeffrey Landman and Kate Nelson for AEA – explained in detail how visits to schools worked in their unions: How they get in touch with schools and universities? What topics are covered during these presentations? How long does a presentation last? Who gives the presentations? Are the presentations online or in person? … Speakers also mentioned the obstacles they had encountered while organizing visits to schools. In terms on what to do when schools are reluctant to let the union in, Equity mentioned going through teachers while Kunstenbond made the decision of going directly to students. Jeffrey and Kate also explained that all AEA presenters – always members – could access a Google Drive containing resources including a presentation handbook, recording of trainings, spreadsheets listing all upcoming presentations, a document with training modules for each topics of interest to student and FAQs. All speakers also stressed the importance of presenting the union as a collective endeavor and not as a service provider.
The second part of the workshop was devoted to discussions in small groups, during which the participants tried to answer the question: How to organise your own visits to schools? They then came together to report back on each group discussion.
The workshop ended with a word of advice from the speakers: start small, with one visit to one school and build on that.
If you would like to view the recording of this event, please contact Camille Richard.
