Solidarity in Action:
Our Projects

Union Aid Abroad-APHEDA, as the global justice organisation of the Australian union movement, works to support stronger union and social movements in thirteen locations in Southeast Asia, the Pacific, the Middle East, and Southern Africa. We do that by working in partnership with thirty-nine local unions and community organisations through thirty projects and campaigns.

Our approach to development and movement-building work is centred in values of partnership, solidarity, equality, justice, and accountability.

We provide on-the-ground assistance which aims to address the causes of injustice and inequality, not the symptoms.

We support organised movements of people to make their own change possible, by exerting political pressure for just and sustainable solutions.

We recognise our solidarity with the working classes and marginalised people of the Global South and stand with them, as together we struggle for a better world.

We seek to deploy funds in effective and strategic ways, with accountability to partner organisations, funding bodies and our own members.

Here are some of the projects and campaigns we undertake in collaboration with communities in our region and beyond:

By working to support strong movements of people, we can fight inequality and corporate greed. History shows us we can demand a just world.

Kate Lee

Executive Officer, Union Aid Abroad - APHEDA

To learn more about how we put our solidarity into action, take a look at the 2023 Annual Report, where you can read about our partnerships and projects, the activism and advocacy of our members, and the progress of our campaign to ban asbestos across Asia.

Union Aid Abroad – APHEDA is working with the Vietnam General Congress of Labour (VGCL) to prepare pro-worker responses to the rapidly changing electricity sector in Vietnam, where there are growing challenges to worker rights, environmental sustainability, and community health.
In the Philippines, Union Aid Abroad - APHEDA is working with unions to build the collective power of unions to shape the solutions to the climate crisis.
The Working Women’s Centre Timor Leste is building the collective power of women in Timor Leste through a new community outreach program that shares knowledge of workplace rights with vulnerable women workers.
Union Aid Abroad – APHEDA partner union in the Phillipines, SENTRO, is expanding its campaign for energy democracy to Masbate Island, where a pilot model of renewable energy cooperatives is being rolled out.
In Cambodia, sex workers are working together to achieve safety at work. The women of the Cambodian Prostitutes’ Union (CPU) are confronting violence at work and discrimination in their communities by building their collective power as a union.
By coming together to build grass-roots organisations, refugee women are overcoming challenges to secure their livelihoods, their education, their healthcare, and their independence.
In Palestine, small-hold farmers are overcoming barriers to selling their produce on the market. Farming communities in Gaza and the West Bank are improving land-care techniques to boost their yields.
In Laos our partner union, the Lao Federation of Trade Unions (LFTU), is building the power of vulnerable private-sector workers to fight against exploitation.
In the Shan State of Myanmar, the next generation of activists are training to fight for social justice and human rights in the School for Shan State Nationalities Youth.

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