In April 2022 Estela Roselló Soberón informed us about the creation of the Seminario Cuidados para la Vida y el Bien Común at the Centro de Ciencias de la Complejidad (C3) of the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM). In this blog Estela Roselló Soberón, general coordinator of the Seminar, calls for allies in the endeavor to work on its mission.

Almost two years after its creation, the Seminar on Care for Life and the Common Good seeks to consolidate itself as a transdisciplinary research group, committed to the promotion of the care agenda in the world, but especially within the university community in which it arises.

The three lines in which its research, teaching and dissemination efforts are concentrated, are the care of psycho-emotional health; the care for peace, equity and human dignity; and the care for the environment, biodiversity and planet Earth as a whole.

What we aim at

In this sense, the researchers who participate in it seek to generate, promote, articulate and communicate knowledge and experiences to build well-being within the university community; the latter, based on ethical norms and values that seek to care for life in all its manifestations, dignity and peace. This, with the purpose of making our university a model of caring community that provides possibilities to build favorable paths to the fulfillment of the UN Sustainable Development Goals 2030.

The way we work to achieve this

Like any project concerned with the promotion of the culture of care, this one links theory with action, that is, the production of knowledge with the implementation of actions in practice. Therefore, one of the primary objectives of the project is to analyze and understand, from different disciplinary perspectives and various dimensions of human experience, what the concepts of care and caring mean at the end of our time, as well as to debate about who should care for whom or what and why it is urgent to do so.

On the other hand, this complex scientific research project seeks to do participatory research with the younger student communities within the university. This is because in Mexico, as in many other parts of the world, young people are a particularly vulnerable sector of the population.

Certainly, there are many dangers and risks facing young Mexicans today. Just to mention a few among them, let´s mention the constant threat of violence exercised by drug cartels, the high probability of falling into addiction to drugs circulating in the territory, being a victim of forced disappearances or daily femicides, suffering from depression or some other emotional illness, as well as many situations resulting from inequality, poverty and neglect of a State that has ceased to meet the educational and public health needs of its population, efficiently.

The future

In this context, the University becomes a very important space when thinking about the construction, promotion and dissemination of a new culture of care, of new epistemological paradigms that place the concept of care at the center, and of new ways of generating co-responsibility, peaceful, healthy, equitable, sustainable and just community conviviality.

That is why the Seminar on Care for Life and the Common Good of the Center for Complexity Sciences of the UNAM seeks to build a new model of participatory and inclusive education that may provide new horizons of hope to generations of young people, eager to find the possibility of making this world a better place for everyone.

Join us!

Our research group looks for articulate international dialogue and networks with all those universities, educational institutions, professors, researchers, students or specialists who, from their own points of view and disciplines, want to join and work in benefice of our caring cause.

If you are interested in knowing more about us, please write an email to this address or take a look at our program