Girardot, Cundinamarca (Colombia), 10/17/2021, Sr. Olga María Botia Sánchez.- In the context of the celebration of the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty that was declared by UN General Assembly, through its resolution 47/196, ... it can be verified that, despite the efforts and initiatives of different organizations to make the world aware of the need to eradicate poverty and destitution in all countries, "the statistics of the World Bank and the United Nations show that there are more than one billion people living in extreme poverty in the world. Of this large total, 70% are women. Similarly, 7 out of every 10 people who die of hunger in the world are women or girls (UNIFEM, 2010) and according to the World Labor Organization, women currently make up 60% of the working poor".
For poor countries, the priorities must be to eliminate extreme poverty and to promote the social development of their people. At the same time, they need to acknowledge the scandalous level of consumption in some privileged sectors of their population and to combat corruption more effectively (LS, 172)
To interpret what Pope says in the Encyclical Laudato Si: the goal of this article is not to provide information or to satisfy curiosity, but rather to become painfully aware, to dare to turn what is happening to the world into our own personal suffering and thus to discover what each of us can do about it (Cfr. LS19).
In France, in the XVII century, in a humble village of Sainville, in the heart of the Beauce, hails the figure of Marie Poussepin, a woman entrepreneur who questioned in a spirit of solidarity, the reality of poverty and misery that its population lived, "she proposed to found a community of the Third Order of Saint Dominic for the service of the parish, to instruct youth and to serve the sick poor".
Her design is still valid today in the mission carried out by the Congregation of the Dominican Sisters of Charity of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin in 36 countries of the world, and it is testified by its audacity and creativity in every era, to respond to the challenges of poverty and misery in the contexts where it has been initiated.
Inspired by the Gospel, the Social Doctrine of the Church and the fundamentals of our Charism, we are to direct or redirect our contact daily with the faces of: migrants, victims of war, displaced, unemployed, rural women, discriminated, sexually exploited, young people without opportunities for quality education, terminally ill, abandoned elderly, etc. That challenges us to be proactive and not to be indifferent to their situation. From education, health, social promotion connected with institutions that enrich our knowledge in the entrepreneurship and management of Solidarity Projects, following the example of the compassionate and merciful Jesus, we take initiatives that nourish hope and contribute to restore human dignity and to free them from this reality that for different reasons and decisions they have to face.
May this celebration of the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty, in this Post-Pandemic period of Covid 19, be an opportunity to recognize the efforts made by some countries to fight against the scourge of poverty and corruption; The contributions from different international organizations and the Church, to make visible the new faces of a humanity whose rights are violated and that exhorts everyone in their knowledge or lifestyle, to maintain a spirit of search for alternatives and actions that generate concrete solutions to the degrading misery and few real possibilities of overcoming a high percentage of people in the world.
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