The meeting The future of work after Laudato Si', promoted by the Dicastery for Integral Human Development, takes place in Rome from May 7 to 10. With the theme "Caring is working, working is caring" the objective is to build a transformative global community and contribute to the global development agenda. Various institutions from around the world participate, including Cáritas Latin America and the Caribbean, through its regional coordinator, Nicolás Meyer.

For Nicolás, the meeting, with people from all continents, is a very enriching diversity in reflection. "The challenges are many and diverse, but there is a lot of consensus that we must put people, their communities and sustainability as central axes to design the work we want. Nothing is closed, finished; we have the possibility of influencing to modify the course of a reality that today is extremely unfair and inequitable."

Meeting with Pope Francis and motivation for decent work

The first activity was a group meeting with Pope Francis. In his speech, the pontiff stressed that in recent years there have been reflections, dialogues and research, proposing innovative models of action for fair, equitable and dignified work for all people in the world. He has identified five themes that are of crucial importance for society as a whole and which he briefly described, inspiring the participants for their work day: decent work and extractive industries, decent work and food security, the relationship between decent work and migration, the relationship between decent work and social justice; decent work linked to the just transition.

Build a global transformative community. This will allow us to move on to a second phase of this project, using the method of common social discernment. In fact, it is necessary to pool all our personal and institutional resources, to begin an adequate reading of the social context in which we operate, trying to capture the potential and, at the same time, recognize in advance those systemic evils that can become social plagues.