Building a Global Community: Towards the second phase of the FOWLS Project (1 May 2024, Rome)

This article presents an introduction to a consultation to be held in May 2024, organized by the FOWLS Project, ICMC, and the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development. The gathering aims to develop a roadmap for further action to be undertaken in the next three years, while also presenting an opportunity for Common social discernment.

 

Building a Global Community: Towards the second phase of the FOWLS Project (1 May 2024, Rome)

 

The Future of Work, Labour after Laudato Si’ (FOWLS) Project, the International Catholic Migration Commission (ICMC), and the Vatican Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development are organizing a Consultation on Promoting “Care is work, work is care” toward Building a Global Transformative Community, as a response to the call for the care of creation from Laudato Si’ and Pope Francis exhortation, Laudate Deum.

The three-day meeting is scheduled to be held at the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development in Rome from 8th to 10th May 2024 and the program will begin with a private Audience with His Holiness Pope Francis at Paul VI Audience Hall

In the preceding year, through a process of Common social discernment involving global organizations and community leaders, our partners identified five key issues topics through five Regional Working groups: Africa, Asia-Pacific, European, Latin America & Caribbean and US-Canada. This process marked the beginning of paving the way to the second phase of the FOWLS project.

 

Key issues identified:

  1. Decent work in food supply chain, sustainable farming, and access to food, in the context of climate change and geostrategic crisis.
  2. Extractive industries, decent work at the local level, impact on local communities while engaging in just transitions.
  3. Social justice, dignity and inequality. Promoting and realizing social justice means giving the voice to the voiceless, while at the same time reinforcing existing protection mechanism and creating new forms of solidarity.
  4. Protection of Migrants, including migrants who are elderly, physically or intellectually challenged, or living with other vulnerabilities and child migrants who are unaccompanied or separated from parents and guardians; access to education, decent work, and entrepreneurship opportunities for migrants and for those who wish to exercise their right to stay in countries/communities or origin.
  5. Just environmental transition in the context of economic crises. While existing challenges have become more acute, the new economic disruption invites to develop new avenues of common social discernment to identify solutions at local, national and regional level.

Considering these five issues, the proposal for the second phase of the FOWLS Project is organized around three interconnected and mutually reinforced outcomes: Understanding, Transforming, and Advocating. The consultation’s main objective is to develop a roadmap for further action to be undertaken in the next three years, while also presenting an opportunity for Common social discernment.

 

Participants and Stakeholders

The event aims to bring together over 50 individuals from various backgrounds, including academics, employers, and workers organizations, as well as faith- and values-based actors engaged in actions, projects, and processes to ensure an imaginative, innovative, peaceful, and more equitable building of our common future. Participants will originate from Catholic-inspired organizations involved in the world of work, Jesuit social centers, the Vatican Secretariat of State, ILO technical experts, representatives of the world of work, and other organizations that will bring the voices of the poor and marginalized.

 

Moving forward

Throughout the consultation, participants will collaboratively devise a detailed plan to actively participate in the Project, delineating their contributions and anticipated benefits. Through in-depth analysis, participants will cultivate a profound understanding of the social justice foundations within the realm of work, including their root causes and barriers to attaining such justice, while envisioning potential impact of justice initiatives on local, national, regional, and global communities. This will result in beneficiary communities being equipped to implement actions that promote “Care is work, work is care”.

 

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Contact information:

For further information or queries, please contact Ignacio Alonso Alasino, at alonso@icmc.net.

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