FIM

FIM organ­ised a nation­al union train­ing work­shop in Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso) from the 7 to 10 September 2011, with­in the frame­work of its African pro­gramme for union train­ing and with the back­ing of Swedish unions SMF and LO-​TCO.

The work­shop attract­ed 25 union mem­bers from all coun­tries, the major­i­ty of whom under 40, addressed in-​depth the most fun­da­men­tal issues of the life of a union and a pro­fes­sion­al musi­cian in a coun­try where music is con­sid­ered by the pub­lic more as enter­tain­ment than as a real indus­try gen­er­at­ing jobs and revenue.

The work­shop was an oppor­tu­ni­ty to raise aware­ness of the active role that SYNAM and its mem­bers can play, both in defin­ing the country’s cul­tur­al pol­i­cy and improv­ing the way it oper­ates itself.

Participants stat­ed their deter­mi­na­tion to increase their involve­ment in SYNAM’s oper­a­tion. Moreover, in a coun­try where relat­ed rights are already gen­er­at­ing rev­enue (includ­ing equi­table remu­ner­a­tion and pri­vate copy­ing), SYNAM is deter­mined to deep­en its involve­ment in BBDA (bureau in charge of lit­er­ary and artis­tic prop­er­ty rights) and get­ting the bill on the sta­tus of the artist ‑which is gath­er­ing dust on one of the min­istry of culture’s shelves- final­ly adopt­ed and applied.

The chal­lenges fac­ing SYNAM are many, but the work­shop gave it sec­ond breath. It will also be able to rely on its rela­tion­ship with the cen­tral union organ­i­sa­tion CNB, sev­er­al of whose rep­re­sen­ta­tives attend­ed the meeting.