We, the Social Work professionals present at the “XI State Congress”, would like to declare our position as regards the current situation of general downturn:

Each day, the failure of a growth model that has forgotten, abandoned, and even disregarded the most fundamental principles of equality, social justice, human development and sustainability, is becoming increasingly evident.

It is not the first time that our profession has brought attention to the fact that unequal economic growth leads to a dead end, as we are unfortunately experiencing at present.

Through the FITS (International Federation of Social Workers), we have insisted, before the UN and other international bodies, on the necessity to build a different model that is not based on financial benefit but rather sustainable and harmonious Human Development.

The key reasons for the failure of the current model stem, as has occurred many times throughout history, from the unscrupulous enrichment of some people (a small minority) at the cost of the suffering or instability of the rest of the world.

We, the Social Workers, are convinced, as this is the essential objective of our work, that even the most rigid structures can change. We know, from our experience, that the walls that seem impassable can always be overcome and that where misery and mire exist, hope and well-being can be built with the help of people.

Nothing is set in stone. Anyone who intends to make us believe that the social, financial or political dynamics are a matter in the hands of the gods of mercantilism, or other untouchable structures of power, is disregarding society as a whole and each one of us individually.

Citizens have power over their destiny. We can and must be aware of the situation and change it if this enables us to get closer to the levels of well-being and happiness that we are entitled to.

In view of the current climate and contrary to sectors of opinion that, paradoxically, are at times responsible for such climate, and that, nonetheless, insist on defending the deregulation of rights, the continuity of fierce and unstoppable neo-liberalism, and the reduction of social expense, we stand by the most vulnerable section of the population who are affected by the greatest cost of the downturn.

We believe and know that there is an anti-downturn model at the margins of these cannibalistic parameters. A model that citizens should lead, with the awareness that it is the State that should guarantee it.

A model, whose central and irrevocable principles are:

• To face up to inequality, guaranteeing the basic rights of citizens in the public sphere and with full rebellion against territorial gender and social condition inequalities or in view of a reduction in rights that some believe to be a solution.
   
• To consider public investment in services and infrastructures as a key point for the creation of employment, re-activating  a new economy on a human scale and as the key factor for social cohesion. Within those services and infrastructures, we believe that Social Services is the ideal strategic sector for the generation of employment, wealth and progress towards new rights.
   
• To URGENTLY increase the efforts made as regards social protection in situations of unemployment, risk of poverty, social exclusion and situations that perpetuate vulnerability and that, in the long run, have an unsustainable human and financial cost.
   
• To implement a new, much more progressive, fiscal policy, in which people who have more, pay considerably more, so that all of us can guarantee that our social needs will be covered and we can exercise our rights.
  

Those of us in Social Work, with all of our experience in intervention in situations of risk and social exclusion, we call for two immediate measures as a subjective right:

• Minimum income that allows all people who lack financial resources to have a dignified standard of living.
   
• Social Services Guarantee for social insertion.

Today in Zaragoza, in this XI Congress, we declare our commitment to provide: