13 - In the Face of Social Injustice: a Panel
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 March 2021
Summary
The conference day entitled ‘What can I do in the face of social injustice?’ took place at Ben-Gurion University in 2015. It was organised by the PAP student programme Casework for Social Change, and was attended by about 100 people, including service users, students and academics, social workers, and other professionals, most of whom stayed to listen to the panel discussion that concluded the day, much later than anticipated.
This chapter is an edited version of the concluding panel's transcript. It is a multi-voiced portrayal of the practice of the active exercising of rights that was first developed in the student programme, and later applied in other PAP programmes all over the country. The people who made up the panel were: Ruth, a service user; Rina, Adam and Shlomi, three students from the student programme; Idit, the programme's active rights coordinator; and Sivan, the head of the MAPA programme.
After the speakers had their say, two questions were taken from the floor. The first question caused a stir among the members of the panel and the audience. In fact, it was an extremely important question because it implied a return to the very conservative stances that the whole event sought to challenge. The answer to the question simply clarified the basic principles of the practice of the active exercising of rights that is based on the ontological assumption that poverty is a violation of human rights. Actually, the question constituted a living example of the ongoing need for the deconstruction and reconstruction of the basic concepts of the paradigm.
Michal: ‘There are three students here from the Casework for Social Change programme – Adam Cohen, Rina Bartz and Shlomi Michael ben Hamo – who can tell us something about their experience of engaging in the active exercising of rights. And also with us is Ruth Buzaglo, who belongs to one of the families that we have accompanied in the programme and who spoke in the Parliament on the World Day for Combating Poverty. Ruth also had a personal meeting with the Minister for Welfare and Social Services that day, who has since been replaced, though the meeting took place only a few months ago.
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- Radical HopePoverty-Aware Practice for Social Work, pp. 191 - 200Publisher: Bristol University PressPrint publication year: 2020