SP International :: Branches

Rood – SP youth

Our country is doing so great – or so the politicians say. We have never been wealthier. They say. Our youth awaits a glorious future. They say.

Rood ('Red') – the youth section of the SP – is not fooled by these statements. 'Almost a million people in Holland live in poverty', they argue in their brochure. 'Despite huge profits on the stock market, education and healthcare suffer enormous cutbacks. Wealth in our part of the world goes hand in hand with hunger and misery in Third World countries. Foreigners are worse off even when they are in Holland. Because while people enjoy their prosperity, a lot of animals suffer torment an unacceptably small bit of space and working youth are considered second rate employees. Angry? Turn Red!'

Rood is part of the Socialist Party. Rood-youth are full-fledged SP members who are active in the local branches, in local as well as in national governing bodies of the SP, as members of the city council, and even in the Senate, where Driek van Vugt was the youngest MP ever.

But Rood also has its own topics and campaigns:

• Rood was present at the climate summit in Bonn and joined the demonstration.
• A months long protest rally against child labour in the production of IKEA cloth and furniture was a big success. IKEA now allows external checks, to make sure children's hands make none of their products.
• Rood campaigned against the royal family's hunting parties. Keeping and feeding the boar in order to shoot them later is an outrage!
• Believe it or not, the Dutch army has got child-soldiers. Rood publishes and distributes an anti-propaganda brochure in which they condemn recruitment of people under the age of eighteen and the pressure the Ministry of Defence puts upon young unemployed to join the army.
• In collaboration with the other SP members Rood put the thumbscrews on the big shots at Shell and urged them to clean up the toxic mess they dumped in the nature resort 'Biesbosch'.
• It is practically impossible to tell whether the food you buy has been genetically modified or not. Several supermarkets all over the country were visited by Rood-people who explained to the shoppers the importance of proper labelling.

Want to know more? Contact Rood