Our Mission:

The shared mission of the 23 member NGOs of JCoR is to strengthen the capacity of members of Catholic Religious congregations working at the grassroots and those representing them at the United Nations to: petition in international, national and regional fora for justice for people living in poverty; address the root causes of unsustainable development; and promote just, equitable and rights-based development via a just implementation of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Our Strategic Position:

At the UN, the religious NGOs are known as a moral presence and as having adopted a preferential option for those who have been rendered poor and marginalized. In every sphere, members of religious congregations advocate not for themselves but for those most vulnerable and oppressed. They challenge the root causes of global poverty, injustice, discrimination, violence, and unsustainable development.

The time for Religious to take collective action could not be more auspicious. The member NGOs of JCoR are situated at the UN and among marginalized populations around the world at a time when Earth and its Peoples are crying out for justice.  Millions of people are displaced, living in poverty, or have no voice to influence the global development agenda.  Driven by global initiatives that focus on a growth model of development rather than development justice, our world favors expediency and the accumulation of wealth, and it prioritizes profit over people’s rights and Earth’s well-being. At this moment in history, the membership of Religious congregations is diminishing, space for civil-society influence in policy-making fora is being assumed rapidly by the private sector, and the SDG implementation process is calling for diligent civil-society monitoring efforts at the grassroots level.

Additionally, Religious from all ministries are calling for an increase in collaboration to respond to these challenging circumstances. In our 2016 survey, members who are in ministry at he grassroots level expressed strong interest in working inter-congregationally.  75% of survey respondents indicated that their local service work would be strengthened if different Catholic congregations in their country worked together in a more structured way.  An additional 13% said congregations were already working together in a structured way.

Our Approach:

We aim to accomplish our overall objective through participation in an inter-congregational coalition that promotes a cultural shift among Religious toward an operational model of enhanced inter-congregational collaboration and deeper integration of justice-and-peace analysis and promotion across ministries from the grassroots level to the global level.

The coalition utilizes and has built upon existing infrastructure and engages strategic partners to achieve four objectives:

1.      1. Strengthen justice- and peace-building skills of coalition members in each geographic level of ministry (local, national, regional, global);
2.      2. Systematize and enhance justice- and peace-related communication among congregations and among levels of ministry;
3.      3. Establish labor-and resource-sharing mechanisms among congregations on each level of ministry; and
4.      4. Execute coordinated, inter-congregational justice and peace campaigns aimed at policy-makers on multiple levels.

A summary of our purpose and program design can be found in our brochure, which is available in English, French, Portuguese, and Spanish.