Community members discuss how Lok Manch, a CJI partner in India, helps them access their rights. Photo: Jenny Cafiso/CJI
On World Social Justice Day, February 20, Canadian Jesuits International (CJI) reaffirms its commitment to work with people struggling for social justice and dignity, especially in the Global South. As a Jesuit institution, CJI’s commitment to social justice stems from its faith and its preferential option for the poor and marginalized.
Social justice, which is grounded on the principle that all human beings are entitled to equal economic, political and social rights and opportunities, is a fundamental prerequisite to achieve peace, security and equity progress within and among nations.
In a world where poverty, inequality and injustice persist, we can’t be complacent. Jesus himself identifies with the “least of these,” the poor, the hungry, and the oppressed in our midst.
CJI partners with Jesuit organizations in Africa, Asia, and Latin America to ensure access to free and quality education and health care and sustainable livelihoods, and the exercise of human rights for all. CJI projects advocate for ecological justice, Indigenous rights, and the rights of forcibly displaced people.
We highlight the work of CJI partner Lok Manch (People’s Forum), which promotes the dignity and well-being of marginalized people in India through policy interventions and improved access to their entitlements and legal rights. Last year alone, Lok Manch trained 316,500 Dalit, tribal and marginalized people and 6,000 community leaders (50% of whom are women) on how to use and protect their rights. A network of about 100 Jesuit and secular organizations in 15 Indian states and 15 Jesuit provinces, Lok Manch has empowered 326 leaders who represent their communities in local government, completed 803 community infrastructure projects, and planted 500,000 trees to mitigate the effects of climate change.
The work of organizations like Lok Manch is crucial. As the International Labour Organization (ILO) notes in its latest report, “We face a disparate yet overlapping set of challenges, ranging from the fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic, the rising cost of living, extreme weather events and geopolitical instability to a looming global debt crisis. Their effects on the world of work are significantly delaying, if not reversing, progress towards social justice.”
While some of the problems facing the world aren’t new, the ILO noted in recent decades there has been growing concern about “rising economic inequality within many countries and the widening disparity between the inordinate wealth accumulated by the richest 1 per cent of the population – and the incomes of the rest.”
It is unacceptable that while the world’s richest 1% own nearly half of the world’s wealth, UNICEF estimates that some 685 million people live in extreme poverty, unable to afford basic needs such as food, shelter, safe drinking water, and health care.
CJI joins other civil society organizations in calling on governments and international institutions to make advancing social justice a priority.
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Fr Arturo Sosa Abascal SJ, Superior General of the Society of Jesus, shares this statement on World Day of Social Justice 2024. Video by the Society of Jesus:
