“Youth: mining, defense of life, and intergenerational justice”
PRESS RELEASE
Five young people from Argentina (Valentina Vidal), Brazil (Guilherme Cavalli), Ecuador (Lucy Ximena Urvina), Guatemala (Alex Donaldson García) and Peru (Daniela Andrade), accompanied by Mons. Noel Londoño, Bishop of Jericó (Colombia), will denounce in Europe the consequences of extractivism and mining in their countries. They will demand respect for life and Mother Nature, and call for universal brotherhood and intergenerational justice.
| Note: CIDSE, together with the Churches and Mining Network, Broederlijk Delen and KOO/DKA will organise an event in the European Parliament hosted by MEP Anna Cavazzini, entitled “Mining over rights: experiences from Latin America and implications for EU policies” on 21st September. |
Extractive projects, corporate ambitions, environmental crimes, devouring mining and facing this reality: the voice of communities in resistance. During the “Season of Creation”, six representatives of Latin American territories affected by extractivism will visit Spain (Madrid, Santiago de Compostela, Valladolid), Belgium (Brussels and EU institutions), Italy (Rome and Vatican) and Germany (Tübingen) with meetings, advocacy and awareness-raising actions. They will also share the creative and courageous ways in which affected communities are confronting it, challenging corporate ambitions and transnational impositions, extractive projects, and the environmental crimes of devouring mining.
From the voices of the rivers, of the mountains, of the martyred communities, the voice of hope and resistance will foster a dialogue from their reality, often unknown and forgotten by Europe, seeking to add more support, will and expose the practices of companies and governments in the Global South, which are the key piece of an economic and political system emerging in the Global North.
The II Caravan with Youth calls for solidarity between generations. To work together to leave a sustainable world, habitable for the future generations. The communities demand their right to say NO, to stop an economic model that is based on the plundering of Mother Earth, on the dispossession of life and the continued accumulation of capital at the expense of rights. For this reason, these voices are calling for Divestment in Mining, as a concrete response to stop financing the disaster and the socio-environmental crime that is sacrificing the lives of entire territories. The economic model based on extractivism and inequality that generates the chains of mineral extraction is a new form of colonisation.
This September 2023, the voices of five other affected territories will be heard in Spain, Italy, Belgium and Germany, through forums, meetings with civil society, the European Parliament and advocacy actions. But these people are also turning to the Churches, religious congregations, faith organisations, Bishops’ Conferences, to join forces in defence of life, of the common home, and of concrete commitments towards a real transition of the world system that is killing whole communities and nature, entire rivers, fields, forests.
This journey coincides with the Season of Creation, and in this framework they tell the world that time is running out, that change is urgent and must be definitive. They seek integral ecology, universal fraternity with those who suffer from mining, social friendship to act together in the ecclesial, political, legal, social and environmental fields.
The II Caravan for Integral Ecology proposes an urgent and necessary meeting in these times that cry out for hope and solidarity action.
About the Caravan:
This is the second Caravan for Integral Ecology organised by the Churches and Mining Network in collaboration with church and civil society organisations in Europe, such as CIDSE, COMECE, ELSiA, “Enlázate for Justice” (Caritas, Cedis, Confer, Justice and Peace, Manos Unidas and REDES), PER-Plataforma por Empresas Responsables, ALBOAN, Justice in Mining, University of Tübingen, Misereor, JPIC-Roma, with whom we have been working for several years, demanding responsibilities and commitments such as Due Diligence in the political field, as well as solidarity in the ecclesial field. In 2022, the testimonies of 8 community leaders toured European countries in an urgent call to respond to the threat of mining, recognising this global relationship of co-responsibility.
About the Church and Mining Network:
The Churches and Mining Network is an ecumenical space, made up of Christian communities, pastoral teams, religious congregations, theological reflection groups, laity, lay people, bishops and pastors who seek to respond to the challenges of the impacts and violations of socio-environmental rights caused by mining activities in the territories where we live and work.
Contact:
Daniela Andrade, Communications Officer
E-mail: daniela.iglesiasymineria(at)gmail.com – Whatsapp: +51 916 196 141
Poster and cover image credit: Churches and Mining Network