LOS NEGRALES, Madrid, Spain.
"The exercise of universal dignity is possible. Commitment to make it happen" was the theme of the Third Conference of the TA Social Action Team in Spain, held in Los Negrales, from February 13-15.
The defense of Human Rights challenges us
Sonia Olea, attorney and member of the Caritas Coordinating Group on Human Rights helped us get into this exciting reality and, at the same time, so worrying because of the continued human rights violations across and along the Spanish geography and worldwide. But also, we addressed this situation with hope as we see solutions on the horizon.
We used as working documents Sonia’s presentation, the Foessa 2014 report, and several articles on the various global and local crises that come together and threaten us at his very moment: economic, ideological, energy, food, environmental, democratic and hegemonic crises. We still do not see the light at the end of the tunnel and it is necessary to go deeper and not stay on the surface. Hence, the need of trying to unravel the truth.
In this regard, in the conference we welcomed Maite Uribe’s words in her letter of 2015: “Key to this is regular study that can give us a clear and discriminative view capable of identifying and naming the challenges that are presented.” She continues: “To study is also to take the responsibility we have as members of the Association to build the future together and to have a broad and updated outlook on the challenges of our societies and the development of our own Association. We feel the need to cultivate a questioning attitude and to continue to search. We must have a critical and demystifying attitude towards cultural “idols”, and know how to integrate theory and practice, experience, and life.”
Tusta Aguilar, in the same vein, presented in PowerPoint texts by Pedro Poveda on study and the need to scrutinize reality. The initiative to illumine the social commitment with Poveda texts emerged last year and they have been used in the II and III Area Conferences and in the Training of educators and volunteers, held in October. We are currently trying to make a compilation of such texts.
The different mission groups that were constituted at earlier meetings -women, immigrants, detainees, social movements, youth, childhood and social projects- also had a space for each person to share their experience, achievements and difficulties, and shed light at a communitarian level on daily work.
Ferran Bolós introduced us to the private network, itsocial, established a few months ago for members to exchange information, comments, documentation, activities by the local steering groups, etc. (132 people are registered)
The annual report was presented and it was completed by the contributions from the group, and collectively we developed proposals for action until December 2015. Likewise, we developed ideas to evaluate the Plan of Social Action of the TA in Spain (2013 -2015), to be held in the last quarter of the year.
Sixty-four people from different parts of the country participated. We are involved in projects promoted by the TA, or by other associations, or at the personal level. We received emails of support from people who could not attend.
At the end of the conference a manifesto was read and unanimously approved and applauded by all. This document summarizes the proposals and conclusions; it also highlights the need to live everyday according to ethical standards, without fear of being a dissenting voice, supporting public institutions and being present in different local and European platforms working along the same lines.
Text and photos: TA Social Action Team