At Fondacio, our vocation is to help everyone dare to move forward with others on a path of Life to build a more human and just world. We seek to serve humanity and contribute to safeguarding our common home. Multiple projects have emerged, in various dimensions, always in the service of an integral ecology that presents itself first and foremost as a story of conversion.
This conversion directly affects our relationship with the ecological crisis and global warming. This is why we propose, as we did in 2018, to join a fast for the climate. Ahead of COP 26, at the beginning of November, we are proposing two days of fasting on Sunday 17 and Monday 18 October 2021 by registering any initiative on the website https://jeunepourleclimat.net/. They will be added to the Greenfaith initiatives https://greenfaith.controlshift.app/home
This young person is fully involved in the Covivre Course that Fondacio is currently running for more than 250 people from 30 countries around the world:
England, Belgium, France, Romania - Canada, United States, Mexico, Guatemala, Colombia, Bolivia, Peru, Chile - Guinea, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Togo, Benin, Burkina Faso, Kenya, Cameroon, Congo DRC - India, Pakistan, Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Malaysia, Philippines, Japan.
At the end of this course, an international meeting is planned in ZOOM, on December 11 from 12:30 to 14:30 (Paris). Save the date, contact us to have the ZOOM link, we will send it to you by email.
A world in upheaval
We are in a world that has been turned upside down. The global health crisis that we have been experiencing since 2020 is an illustration of this. The increase in inequalities, ecological disorders, climate disruption, the loss of meaning and social ties, and geopolitical tensions remind us every day of the issues facing the world and the challenges and threats that hang over it.
To characterize this era of unprecedented planetary disorder, where human activities have a significant global impact on the Earth's ecosystem, we speak of the Anthropocene, that is to say a period in the history of the Earth when its inhabitants have become the main drivers of the changes affecting it. The uncontrolled activity of human beings has led to an inconsiderate exploitation of nature, at the risk of destroying it and in turn being a victim of its degradation. The urgency and magnitude of the world's problems push us to act and become agents of change.
Human societies and nature live together in a “common home,” we are interdependent. Integral Ecology is a concept widely taken up in Pope Francis’ encyclical Laudato si’ published in 2015 and which has had a wide echo well beyond the Christian world. “There are not two separate crises, one environmental and the other social, but a single, complex socio-environmental crisis. The possibilities for solutions require an integral approach to combat poverty, to restore dignity to the excluded and at the same time to preserve nature” (LS 139).
The relational and connection dimension, to oneself, to others and to nature is also essential. We are invited to an experience of communion among ourselves and with all of nature. Integral ecology takes into account the three pillars of sustainable development: the social, economic and environmental aspects as well as the cultural and daily life aspects. It is inseparable from the notion of the common good and implies justice between generations. The safeguarding of our common home thus becomes a pressing call, which concerns us all, with a perspective that takes into account all aspects of the global crisis.
Integral ecology is first and foremost a story of conversion. By conversion, we mean a change of perspective, a renewed way of seeing our world, its challenges, and the ways of trying to respond to them. In mountaineering, when you find yourself with skis facing an insurmountable wall, all that remains is to make a conversion. It is a somewhat delicate maneuver that consists of making a 180-degree turn, to reinvent a new path. Integral ecology invites us to do this. This does not necessarily mean that we must commit ourselves even more. It is not a question of pushing those who do social work, who take care of the poorest, to add ecological actions on top of that and vice versa. It is more an invitation to think differently. To think that everything is linked. Social justice is completely linked and intertwined with ecological justice. The cry of the poorest and the cry of the earth find their roots in the same reasons.
Integral ecology is above all a path that is proposed to us. Integral ecology invites us to enter into a more peaceful relationship with ourselves, into a peaceful relationship with others, into a peaceful relationship with nature, and into a peaceful relationship with the spiritual dimension of our existence.
This is what the Covivre Course proposes. To enter further into a dynamic of integral ecology is first to choose a path, it is to take the means to connect ourselves to nature, to connect ourselves to all our brothers, to all our sisters, particularly the poorest among us, to take the means to connect ourselves to the vertical dimension of our existence, to our spiritual life, whatever the source, whether we call it God or not. To enter into this experience with others is to try to build a model of society.
No responses yet