Press release – Social Work Ethics Research Group

Press release: 4th November, 2021

World Leaders Invited to Join Global Mass Movement for Eco-Social Change

As politicians and campaigners gather in Glasgow for COP26, people across the globe are inviting world leaders to join them next year in working together towards creating a new eco-social world as we emerge from the pandemic. The people’s summit Co-Building a New Eco-social World: Leaving No One Behind takes place online from 29th June to 2nd July 2022 (see http://newecosocialworld.com/). Through our representative organisations, 100s of millions of people have already committed to co-designing and co-building a sustainable world, in which all people live with trust, confidence, security and feel that they belong.

The summit partners include the world’s trade unions, health sectors, Faith Invest Network, global student bodies, international social work organisations, United Nation’s agencies, social movements, academic/educational networks and many others. This is an opportunity for everyone to get involved in building sustainable shared futures.

The Social Work Ethics Research Group is just one of these many partners. Sarah Banks, Professor at Durham University, UK, Co-convenor of the Group, explained why she and her international colleagues were inspired and motivated to become partners in the People’s Summit: “We research on values and ethics in social work. We believe that social workers have a key role to play, not just in supporting people experiencing the damaging effects of climate change, pandemics and other crises, but in stimulating community action for social and ecological justice. Our role in the build up towards the Summit will be to work with social workers around the world holding value conversations for social change”.

The people’s summit is a part of a process that has already begun with social movements and agencies worldwide calling for equality and sustainability. The summit partners, who are connected with many of these movements, come from different perspectives and cultures. They have already removed traditional barriers and have engaged together with a common vision. The summit partners have collectively agreed on a set of initial value-ideas as a starting point to inspire new ideas and contributions. These aim to represent diverse cultures, philosophies, and interests across the world. They will steer us forward in our tasks of developing globally shared principles and values for a new eco-social world that leaves no one behind.

These include:

  • Buen Vivir*, love and care of people and the planet, responsibilities and rights
  • Respect, dignity, harmony and justice
  • Diversity, belonging, reciprocity and equity
  • Ubuntu**, togetherness and community

Come and join us. Anyone can be a part of this, the registration is now open, and we want your contributions in this mass movement for change. Join the Co-Building a New Eco-social World: Leaving No One Behind people´s summit here.

*Buen Vivir –a social philosophy drawing on South American indigenous belief systems that describes a way of life and a form of development that sees social, cultural, environmental, and economic issues working together and in balance, not separately and hierarchically as at present.

**Ubuntu – an indigenous African philosophy based on people’s interdependency and interconnectedness with their environment; I am because we are.

Contact: Social Work Ethics Research Group, s.j.banks@durham.ac.uk

www.eswra.org/ethics_sig.php

 

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