Today is World Day of Social Justice. Tomorrow isn't - 18 Feb 2014
As we seek to build the world we want, let us intensify our efforts to achieve a more inclusive, equitable and sustainable development path built on dialogue, transparency and social justice
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon
According to the UN’s official statement…
“...social justice is an underlying principle for peaceful and prosperous coexistence within and among nations... We advance social justice when we remove barriers that people face because of gender, age, race, ethnicity, religion, culture or disability.”
Equality and justice; if Valentines Day was a day to remind us to love as we should be doing everyday, World Day of Social Justice is a day to care about things we should be caring about everyday and to pray for things we should be praying for everyday.
Syria, Ukraine, The CAR, Venezuela. These injustices have the headlines and deserve our prayers, but the injustice runs far deeper – its been so engrained into our social sub conscious that it practically sustains our lifestyle. Food, clothes, jewellery, travel. Social inequality can be found rife at the heart of these global industries and is sustained and empowered by our ambivalence.
When we read the inequality stats, we all want to see change - but we need to start working for change.
So whether you spend today flying out to Manenberg, signing a petition or buying fair-trade tea bags*, use it as a day to shake up your personal conscious and, in turn, the wider conscious around you.
Today is World Day of Social Justice. We need to try and make it everyday.
*that link has some awesome video clips in it
All images are used by permission in accordance with commons copyright license terms: Feature image is a derivative of the image 'learning to work in a sweat shop' by stacey bogart, 'Peace to the world' by Thomas Rousing and 'Peace and love from A-Z' by McKay Savage