Self-employed youngsters on the spotlight of Cuban Communist forum

HAVANA, Cuba, Nov 11 (acn) The attention to the needs and challenges of Cuban youngsters who have joined the private and cooperative sector is the focus of sessions of the National Committee of the Young Communist League, taking place in Havana Friday and Saturday.

The top young communist body, made up by 103 executive members, is debating the performance and responsibilities of the political organization with regards to growing number of young people involved in those economic activities, currently calculated at over 158 thousand.

Communist organization National Bureau member Julio Casanova said that the forum will use the results of previous municipal meetings with young self-employees held in September and October following the accords of the organization´s 10th Congress.

In those meetings, described by Casanova as an unprecedented and positive experience, the young communist organization was accompanied by representatives from the Communist Party, the government and unions, including officials from the Social and Labor Security Ministry, the Tax Administration Office and other entities.

Addressing this emerging economic sector is something new and to a large extend unknown for Cuba, said Casanova and added that all of them are now learning from this experience.

Since there is no central entity or institution to directly attend to the private and cooperative sector, the issue becomes complex, since it is a heterogenous sector of the youths involved in production, trade, services, and the communist organization has the duty to represent, said Casanova in statements to ACN.

He explained that some 200 opinions collected from the youngsters in previous meetings tell how important and necessary the exchange is and he stressed the need to keep going with such dialog.

The forum´s agenda also includes an evaluation of the Communist Organization´s attention to the education sector, the pioneer children organization, which is the natural source of members to the Young Cuban Organization, and the University Student Federation.