Caritas Europa is a
Europe
Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located entirel ...
an
confederation
A confederation (also known as a confederacy or league) is a union of sovereign groups or states united for purposes of common action. Usually created by a treaty, confederations of states tend to be established for dealing with critical issu ...
of
Catholic
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
relief organization, development and social service organisations operating in Europe, founded in 1971 as ''Eurocaritas''. The organisation was renamed Caritas Europa in 1992 and is one of the seven regions of
Caritas Internationalis
Caritas Internationalis is a confederation of 162 Catholic relief, development and social service organizations operating in over 200 countries and territories worldwide.
Collectively and individually, their missions are to work to build a bet ...
. The
organisation's secretariat is in
Brussels, Belgium.
Caritas Europa consists of 49 national member organisations that are working in 46 European countries. The member organisations are active in combating poverty and social exclusion, providing social and
welfare
Welfare, or commonly social welfare, is a type of government support intended to ensure that members of a society can meet basic human needs such as food and shelter. Social security may either be synonymous with welfare, or refer specifical ...
services, dealing with
migration
Migration, migratory, or migrate may refer to: Human migration
* Human migration, physical movement by humans from one region to another
** International migration, when peoples cross state boundaries and stay in the host state for some minimum le ...
and asylum issues, combating
human trafficking, providing
humanitarian aid in Europe and across the world,
regional development
Regional development is a broad term but can be seen as a general effort to reduce regional disparities by supporting (employ) economin regions. In the past, regional development policy tended to try to achieve these objectives by means developmen ...
,
peace
Peace is a concept of societal friendship and harmony in the absence of hostility and violence. In a social sense, peace is commonly used to mean a lack of conflict (such as war) and freedom from fear of violence between individuals or groups. ...
programs and projects around the world. Caritas Europa fosters cooperation and mutual learning among its member organisations and facilitates capacity building, joint advocacy and joint projects and programs.
Secretaries General
* 1983-1991: Walter E. Laetsch
* 1985-1992: Edward de Brandt (Managing Director of Euro-Caritas)
* 1991-1995: Luc Trouillard
* 1996-2002: Hermann Icking
* 2002-2010: Marius Wanders
* 2010-2019: Jorge Nuño Mayer
* 2019-?: Maria Nyman
Notes
* Caritas Europa. ''Moved With Compassion - The History of Caritas Europa - Festschrift on the Occasion of the 25th Anniversary of Caritas Europa's Statutes 1993-2018''. Publisher: Jorge Nuño Mayer.
External links
Caritas Europa
{{Europe-org-stub
Organizations established in 1971
Caritas Internationalis
Christian organisations based in Belgium
Non-profit organizations based in Europe