In a complex context for Cáritas, where sustainability is one of the biggest challenges to guarantee a response to more complex realities, volunteering renews its firm commitment to serve the most vulnerable people.
Cáritas volunteers analyzed the Organization's last two years of action in the province of Las Palmas during the Diocesan Assembly held last weekend at the Claret school in Tamaraceite. According to a statement, the period 2023-2025 has been marked by "a generalized deterioration" of social protection factors and "the commodification of housing, which has accentuated the chronification of poverty in the Canary Islands."
This turbulent reality has conditioned Cáritas' response in recent years due to the decrease in donations, instability, lack of updates, and delays in receiving public funding. Faced with this uncertain outlook, Cáritas volunteers, the heart and engine of the Institution through the parish Cáritas, devices, and services on the islands of Gran Canaria, La Graciosa, Lanzarote, and Fuerteventura, participated in the analysis of social action to specify the future challenges that must be addressed in light of the intensification of social exclusion.
Five fundamental pillars
The analysis of the social context presented at the assembly was structured around five pillars based on the *II Strategic Plan* and complemented by an analysis of the Institution's sustainability. This reflection seeks to improve the efficiency, social impact, and sustainability of Cáritas in light of the identified social challenges:
• The housing crisis and residential exclusion, with rising rents and a scarcity of affordable alternatives, turning housing into the main family expense.
• The deterioration of the physical and mental health of the people being assisted, aggravated by the difficult access to healthcare services and the scarcity of adequate resources for undiagnosed problems.
• The difficulties in the educational field for children and young people who require support in school supplies and educational reinforcement.
• A complex migratory reality, with 54% of the households assisted being of migrant origin, and more than half (56%) in an irregular administrative situation, which limits their access to rights and public social protection.
• The instability of public funding, characterized by "the slowness in the procedures for calls/resolutions," and "delays in the receipt of funds, generating uncertainty and forcing Cáritas to seek alternatives with high financial costs."
Faced with this situation, "Cáritas has been forced to redefine its criteria for accessing aid in order to prioritize people in situations of the most severe social exclusion," stated the Director of the Institution, Gonzalo Marrero. This implies more complex and costly interventions, which has generated the need for greater specialization of volunteers.
Cáritas Demands Access to Decent Housing
Challenges for the future include demanding access to decent housing and influencing public policies that guarantee this right, strengthening the sustainability of basic aid through the attraction of new resources, reducing the educational gap and strengthening comprehensive support, including psychological support, unification of reception criteria, and training in the detection of complex problems.
Faced with these realities, Cáritas, on its 70th Anniversary, reaffirmed its alignment with Pope Francis, who stated: "From the heart, communities will manage to unite their diverse intelligences and wills and pacify them so that the Spirit may guide us as a network of brothers." Only with a heart united to that of Christ can a "social miracle" be generated, building a kingdom of love and justice.
Cáritas expresses and reiterates its evangelical commitment to serve the most disadvantaged people in our society, especially the poorest, and to detect and denounce, in a prophetic way, injustice and the violation of rights.
