Iglesias y Minería is a Latin American platform of Christian NGOs inspired by Laudate Sí that seeks a binding human rights treaty to prevent abuses by extractivist multinationals in Latin America. Entidades fraternas de Iglesias y Minería describes the 24 NGOs that are part of the platform and includes the Inter-Church Commission for Justice and Peace of Colombia with which the Colombia Group of the grassroots community St. Thomas Aquinas of Redes Cristianas has a strong relationship.

Iglesias y Minería in Europe is coordinated with CIDSE: "We are an international family of Catholic social justice organisations working for transformational change to end poverty and inequalities, challenging systemic injustice, inequity, destruction of nature and promoting just and environmentally sustainable alternatives."

I had uploaded Henk's report in Dutch which most of us don't understand so I now attach a translation in English.

European Grassroots Communities Meeting

Collectif Européen des Communautés de Base

Lyon (France) -14,15,16 october 2022

Lyon doesn't feel that far away and of course I go by train. About 12 noon from home and really arrived at the address at 9pm. Including finding the Metro and walking. We stayed in a big Don Bosco house and overlooked Lyon with a Roman amphitheatre on our doorstep. We could have done worse. Little do I know then that the return journey will be fraught with major obstacles. There is another meal waiting for us that we can heat up ourselves in a microwave oven. So it's good to get home. We are 7 delegates (France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Austria, Italy, Spain and Switzerland, but actually 8 because Belgium is of course in two,

Maria Joao Sande Lemos has sent me some texts by the two most prominent Portuguese theologians of today by Fr Anselmo Borges and Fray Bento Domingos which Nós Somos Igreja are uploading on their website every week.

The first:   Religiões: "o direito à esperança, à beleza, ao Céu" (2) can be downloaded in Portuguese directly from the November 5 edition of the Diario de Noticias

You can read my deepl translation into English by clicking on Text by Anselmo Borges

 Now read the original in Portuguese by Fray Bento Domingos and then the translation on his article

WORLD DAY OF THE POOR AGAINST POVERTY

Fray Bento Domingos, O.P.

1. For a long time the Church was only in the news because of the ecclesiastical crimes of paedophilia. It was and still is a fundamental issue and should never be forgotten, as the French Episcopal Conference has just revealed. However, if the Catholic Church has suffered and suffers because of these facts and their consequences, we hope that the Independent Commission will continue its work and will have more and more support from all the bodies of the Catholic world.

It would, however, be a grave error for this misfortune to paralyse the movements for revision of life, for conversion and for missionary innovation. Pope Francis is the first to give the example of pursuing simultaneously

Lyon voelt niet zo ver weg en natuurlijk ga ik met de trein. Ongeveer 12.00 van huis en om 21.00 echt gearriveerd op het adres. Inclusief zoeken van de Metro en wandeling. We bivakkeren in een groot huis van Don Bosco en kijken uit over Lyon met voor de deur een Romeins amfitheater. We hadden het slechter kunnen treffen. Ik weet dan nog niet dat de terugreis met grote hindernissen zal verlopen. Er staat nog een maaltijd klaar die we zelf kunnen opwarmen in een magnetron. Goed thuiskomen dus. We zijn met 7 gedelegeerden

Since EN-RE participates in the Committee NGOs as Advocates of Gender Equality and Women's Rights, in which one of the co-chairs is Ms. Bettina HAHNE of Soroptimist International, we attach the link to Soroptimist International Statement: The Rights of Women & Girls

Since the Soroptimist statement incorporates a google translator, this declaration can be read in nearly 100 languages.

We men must do everything we can to defend the rights of Women and Girls.

Veillez cliquer sur:

Rapport d'activité depuis juin 2022 par le président de la Conférence des OING

et je vous recommande a voir: Comité d'intelligence artificielle

et le BePart Forum

que recommande comment promouvoir la participation des citoyens au processus décisionnel et contient de nombreuses informations utiles et des bonnes pratiques à travers l'Europe en français, anglais, allemand, italien et espagnol. Il s'agit d'une initiative conjointe de la Conférence des OING, du Congrès des pouvoirs locaux et régionaux et de la Direction générale de la démocratie du Conseil de l'Europe.

Kindly click on

Activity Report since June 2022 by the President of the INGO Conference

I also suggest you click on Committee on Artificial Intelligence

And also on the BePart Forum

which recommends how to promote citizen participation in the decision-making process and contains a lot of useful information and good practices across Europe in English, French, German, Italian and Spanish and is a joint initiative of the Conference of INGOs, the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities and the Directorate General of Democracy, of the Council of Europe.

Click on https://youtu.be/AOEqQ1z7Sp8 to see the demonstration outside the offices of the archbishop of Madrid on 24th October 2022.

Then on Manifiesto de Redes Cristianas sobre las inmatriculaciones

Although the Manifesto is written in Spanish, if you click on the Google translator link at the right hand side of the heading, you can read the Manifesto in about 100 different languages.

Alternatively, click on the heading with your Android mobile and you can read the Manifesto in your language.

Inesperadamente para mí, un médico-investigador de la Universidad Erasmus hace una introducción sobre el impacto del calor en las personas mayores. Se trata de un estudio a nivel europeo. Con grupos de clientes seleccionados y entrevistas cualitativas. Así es como se establece una buena investigación. Pero en Italia también se están llevando a cabo investigaciones paralelas. Llama la atención que a muchas personas mayores les guste en cierto modo el calor, porque parece que los huesos funcionan más fácilmente y mejor y el dolor es menor en las enfermedades reumáticas. Las olas de calor no son del todo negativas.

Participo digitalmente en la conferencia de otoño de las ONGI en Estrasburgo, adscrita al Consejo de Europa, donde pasan multitud de temas. Entre ellos se encuentra

Unexpectedly for me, a physician-researcher from Erasmus University gives an introduction on the impact of heat on the elderly. This turns out to be a European-level study. With selected client groups and qualitative interviews. That's just how you set up good research. But parallel research is also taking place in Italy. It is striking that quite a lot of elderly people actually like the heat in a certain sense because bones seem to function easier and better and pain is less with rheumatic diseases. Heat waves are not all negative.

I digitally participate in the autumn conference of INGOs in Strasbourg attached to the Council of Europe, where a multitude of topics pass by. Among them is this