Chairperson Aaron Ooms | Ideology Social democracy | |
Headquarters Grasmarkt 105 /44
1000 Brussels, Belgium International affiliation International Union of Socialist Youth European affiliation Young European Socialists | ||
The Young Socialists (Dutch: Jongsocialisten) is an independent social-democratic youth organization in the Flemish Region in Belgium loosely connected to the Flemish party Socialistische Partij Anders (sp.a). From its launch in 2001 to September 2013, the organisation was known as Animo.
Contents
History
In 1978, the Belgian Socialist Party split apart along the language boundary between the francophone Wallonia and the Dutch-speaking Flanders. However, it wasn't before 2001 that the youth organization Young Socialists followed their mother parties, giving birth to the Wallonian Movement of Young Socialists (MJS) connected to the Socialist Party (PS) and the Flemish Animo. While MJS kept closely tied to its mother party, Animo decided to stay out of party politics and to run campaigns for their positions rather than any specific party.
In 2004, Animo founded with two other political youth organizations Jong Groen! and the social-liberal Jong Spirit (later L²) the progressive youth movement Joengk.
In 2013, the organization changed its name to Jongsocialisten.
Internal organization
The gender-balanced operative board is directly elected by all Young Socialist members every year and consists of eight board members, possibly some co-opted board members, and a chairperson.