Contents of ICSW Europe Newsletter Spring 2016:

• A Message from the President
• ICSW Europe General Assembly
• ICSW Europe Board Meeting in Berlin
• New ICSW Europe Member
• Applications for Support
• Social Platform´s General Assembly 2016
• ENSACT
• European Accessibility Act
• World Social Work Day
• Conferences/Expert Meetings
• Useful Links
• Colophon

A Message from the President
A Few Words about Future

Dear readers,
at the end of my two-year term as the president of ICSW Europe I would propose some ideas of the next possible steps according to my view. We have to follow the ICSW Europe vision of supporting the development and promotion of socially fair life in Europe, based on shared values, in order to enhance sustainability of human decent life for all.

We need to remind our basic regional document - the Articles of Association of ICSW Europe. According to the Articles, Art. 2, para 1 the four objectives are: to promote forms of social and economic development, which aim to reduce poverty, hardship and vulnerability throughout the world, especially amongst disadvantaged people; to strive for recognition and protection of fundamental rights to food, education, health care and security as it believes that these rights are an essential foundation for freedom, justice and peace; to seek to advance equality of opportunity, freedom of self-expression, participation and access to human services; to advocate policies and programmes which strike an appropriate balance between social and economic goals and which respect to cultural diversity and to seek implementation of these proposals by governments, international organisations and others.
According to the Articles of Association of ICSW Europe, Art. 2, para 2, the Association’s means of action are: gathering and disseminating information; undertaking research and analysis; convening seminars and conferences; drawing on grass-root experiences; strengthening non-governmental organisations; developing policy proposals; engaging in public advocacy; and working with policy-makers and administrators in government and elsewhere. ICSW Europe thus also provides an arena for international dialogue between practitioners, researchers, policy makers and civil society.

ICSW Europe is a full member of European Platform of Social NGOs (www.socialplatform.org) in Brussels and the Conference of International NGOs (INGO) at the Council of Europe. We need to be more active within them also with inviting all of our members to deal with. In 2008 ICSW Europe was a founding member of European Network for Social Action (ENSACT), which main activity is The Global Agenda for Social Work and Social Development implementation in Europe. ICSW Europe is a founding member of newly established Covenant on Demographic Change (2016).
More information about Age Platform Europe find on: http://www.age-platform.eu/
or http://www.afeinnovnet.eu/.

The financial issues are crucial, but more important is not to lose trust and to be more close to our mission. Financial stability has to be guaranteed either from services delivered to our constituency/membership and also as a result of our different activities. Better inter/membership cooperation and between regions brings synergy and attractiveness to potential partners and donors (such could expert meeting with participation of ICSW MENA region in October 2016 in Cyprus). We need to be in contact with potential new members/partners and to be more open to them in all regions. ICSW Europe is non-profit organization, but, nevertheless, it can have balance and potentially growing budget. The main target is to fulfil our mission as much as it is possible. Financial balance is one of the conditions to achieve our goals.

ICSW Europe improves contacts and cooperation between members and to be familiar with examples of good practice from us, to use open method of coordination, to cooperate together in joint projects and programs. We need to better use our capacity. ICSW Europe can organize biannual European conferences focused on fundamental social welfare issues (starting from 2017).

Managing the organisation with such a long history with a number of successes is always honour and a big challenge for each of us. We are not alone in Europe. We have a lot of friends, partners and allies like the Social Platform, that share with us the same goal. 48 Pan-European organisations are united in it. They are our natural allies. And they are not only in Europe. World Community has recognized the right for social protection floor at UN, New York in September 2015. We need to use the leading role of ICSW in forming global, regional and national coalitions. We want to continue in offering forum opened for expressing worries in the area of social development, welfare at home and in the world. We need to cooperate, not to compete.

I wish our ICSW Europe family success, satisfaction and progress in enhancing of sustainability of decent human life for all now and in the near future.

doc. RNDr. Miloslav Hetteš, CSc.
president ICSW Europe
International Council on Social Welfare (ICSW)
http://www.icsw.org/