After conferences and distressing reports on climate change more and more people realize that it will affect all of us. But what is on our plate as social workers?
The People’s Summit in July 2022 IFSW with other organisations launched the People’s Charter, with five central values:
o Buen Vivir, love and care for people and the planet, responsibilities and holistic rights.
o Respect, dignity, harmony and social justice
o Diversity, belonging, reciprocity and equity
o Ubuntu, togetherness, accountability and community
o Solidarity, equality, inclusion and collaboration.
Acting on these values requires us all to rethink and to challenge ourselves in every aspect of our lives – our work, where we live, our business environments, our relationships with each other and our planet’s sustainability. Stemming from our interdependency with each other and the planet earth, we have an obligation to work together to ensure and sustain the future of our planet for this and future generations. Education to rebuild the relationship between nature and the planet is key to achieving an eco-social world.
The implications for our sustainable shared futures are:
1.Co-developing reciprocity
2.Co-building peace
3. Co-living with nature
4. Co-creating social justice
5. Co-realising equality
In this workshop we share examples and develop ideas on all five. These goals we can only begin to achieve when we act in our own surroundings and our own work. There are already inspiring examples and ideas, and we will collect more, to help each other to think, to develop and to act.
Read the complete text of the People’s Charter on the IFSW website or at https://newecosocialworld.com/the-peoples-charter-for-an-eco-social-world/
Josien Hofs (IFSW)