With a strong call to maintain hope and redouble community efforts, the Fraternal Cooperation Forum took place from June 26 to 28 in Panama, a space where various national Caritas, sister Caritas and allied agencies evaluated the operational dynamics and current challenges facing the continent. The event served to ratify that, despite the closure of some financing channels, the ecclesial network is consolidated through mutual aid and synodal work.

A Cáritas that advances without stopping

Monsignor Gustavo Rodríguez Vega, archbishop of Yucatán and president of Cáritas Latin America and the Caribbean, highlighted the importance of the space within the framework of the 70th anniversary of Cáritas emphasizing the need for a coordinated response that arises from fraternity to face the contemporary context.

Face in a fraternal way the challenges that the present represents. The agencies, the aid that have been closed, but Cáritas is moving forward. That is why this fraternal meeting has helped us look for ways to move forward. We are celebrating 70 years in our Cáritas and we cannot stop. We have to look for where we can walk, what we can do and never stop, sincethe charity of Christ urges us.

Expression of communion and exchange of experiences

The participants highlighted the importance of this forum to maximize effectiveness in the territory and optimize the use of institutional resources.

On the part of Cáritas Internationalis, the Director of Development of the Confederation, Moira Monacelli highlighted the unifying nature of the confederation in these processes: “This Forum of Fraternal Cooperation organized by the regions of Latin America and the Caribbean is a unique expression of solidarity, a space of communion and a way of walking together in our confederation”.

Monacelli emphasizes that this space strengthens the identity of Cáritas to improve service to the poor with love, compassion and professionalism.

At this moment, as Caritas Internationalis, we accompany this process and listen to experiences, good practices and learn a lot from local leadership. So, thanks to the region, to the organizations present here and we are going to continue to walk together and improve our service to the poor and also strengthen each other.

Likewise, Maribel Jaén, director of Cáritas Panama and host of the Forum, praised the value of evaluating leadership and internal dynamics in the face of the regional situation: “We have had a very good meeting, very rich in the exchange of development experiences and opportunities that the region has, because we consider that it is very important to see the whole issue of institutional strengthening, new leadership, work in the territory. I believe that the meeting that has taken place at this time has supported precisely the great challenges that the Caritas of Latin America have in the midst of a lot of social and political uncertainty that exists in Latin America. Caritas in our region was pointed out as one of the methodological keys of the forum. Diana Trimiño, regional director of Latin America and the Caribbean of Catholic Agency for Overseas Development (Cafod), pointed out the operational areas identified for joint work in the short and medium term.

How do we take that next step of really coordinating better, working together better at the regional level at a time when cooperation is going through many challenges and I think we have identified many areas in which we can continue walking together, stop duplicating efforts, start finding spaces in which we could really maximize our impact and our effectiveness.

The mission of reaching out

The archbishop of Panama, Monsignor José Domingo Ulloa, who presided over the opening Eucharist of the Forum, reaffirmed the mystical and pastoral essence that defines the identity of these meetings.

“To increasingly strengthen the work that Cáritas Latin America and the Caribbean carries out in our region. The joy is to be able to meet with brothers who are carrying out this meeting of faith, that same mission of reaching out to our brothers most in need,” he concluded. Mons. Ulloa.

The meeting ended with the commitment to continue implementing joint strategies that strengthen cooperation in the Latin American and Caribbean region, ensuring that communities continue to be active subjects of their own development and self-management.