About the Conference

EiH2006 London saw the coming together of experts in the fields of sociology, nutrition, economics and marketing, and practitioners in the hospitality and care industries. Debate on the topic of diet and personal well-being were identified and trends challenged.

May 14-15, 2006 | Royal Garden Hotel, London W8 4PT

Chairman

Bryan K. Sanderson, CBE | Conference Chairman & BUPA

Bryan Sanderson graduated from the London School of Economics where he gained a BSc in Economics. He has been awarded a CBE, holds Honorary Degrees from the Universities of Sunderland and York and is an Honorary Fellow of the Institute of Chemical Engineers. Following his studies Bryan did two years voluntary service with the UN in Peru, following which he joined BP. He held a number of positions, including Senior Representative for South East Asia and China, based in Singapore before being appointed a managing director of BP and CEO of BP Chemicals. Following his retirement from BP in 2000, Bryan held the post of Chairman of the Learning and Skills Council for four years and is now Chairman of BUPA and Standard Chartered Bank; he is also the non-executive Chairman of the Sunderland Area Regeneration Company, a non-executive director of Sunderland football club and Durham County Cricket Club, serves on the Board of the Foundation of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies and is the UK representative on the Commonwealth Business Council.

Plenary Sessions

Prof. Thomas Hibb | Dean of the Honors College & Professor of Ethics & Culture at Baylor University, Texas, USA

Thomas Hibbs read Philosophy at the University of Dallas and the University of Notre Dame. He went on to lecture Philosophy at Boston College. Thomas has written 2 scholarly books on Aquinas including Dialectic and Narrative in Aquinas, an interpretation Summa Contra Gentiles, and has also written a book on popular culture entitled ‘Shows about Nothing’. Hibbs has written on film, culture and higher education in books and culture, his works are reviewed in Christianity Today, New Atlantis, The Dallas Morning News, National Review and The Weekly Standard and The Chronicle of Higher Education.

Prof. Dr. Phil Kirsten Schlegel-Matthies | University of Paderborn

Vice President of International Federation of Home Economics, FG Nutrition and Consumer Education, Faculty of Natural Sciences Department of Sport & Health, University of Paderborn, Germany Prof. Dr. Phil. Kirsten Schlegel-Matthies is a graduate in Social History and German Literature from the University of Münster. She wrote her Thesis on the History of Housework and the Ideal of the German.

Prof. Sophia Aguirre | The Catholic University of America

Dr. Aguirre is an Ordinary Professor of Economics at the Busch School of Business and Economics of The Catholic University of America. She is the founder of the Integral Economic Development Programs at this School. She specializes in international finance and integral economic development. She has researched and published in the areas of exchange rates and economic integration, as well as on theories of population, human and social capital and family as it relates to integral economic development. Dr. Aguirre has lectured at both the national and international level. Since ICPD ’94, she has actively participated in UN Conferences. She testified in front of Congresses and Parliaments on issues related to population, family and health both nationally and internationally.  She has also advised several governments on women’s education, family policy, and health.  She was a presidential appointee to the US Advisory Commission on Foreign Diplomacy.

Prudence Margaret Leith OBE | Chef & Writer

Prue Leith studied at Cape Town University, the Sorbonne, Paris and Cordon Bleu London. Prue has gained much experience in the food/hospitality sector having acted as a Board member for Safeway plc, Whitbread plc, Halifax plc and British Rail. She has been Chairman of The Royal Society of Arts and the British Restaurateurs Association. She is currently on the board of Woolworths and several smaller companies, and chairs the British Food Trust, Focus on Food and the Hoxton Apprentice, a not for a profit training restaurant company. Her experience within the media and broadcasting include writing regular columns for the Daily Mail, Sunday Express, Mirror and the Guardian as well as twelve cookery books and three novels, and appearing on the Best of British (BBC 2) and Tricks of the Trade (BBC 1). She has eleven Honory Degrees or Fellowships, has won Veuve Cliquot Business Woman of the Year, Glenfiddich Trade Journalist of the Year and Corning, Food Journalist of the Year.

Panel Discussions

Panel 1: Training for Excellence. Examples of Best Practice

• Supporting body: Lakefield, Professional Training for the Hospitality Industry, UK

The hospitality industry, focusing on the same basic skills as excellence in the home, is suffering a severe skills shortage despite many training opportunities at all levels. Although management-level university courses work well, the training of operative-level staff is less satisfactory, and new training models are continually being studied. The training centres presented in this workshop are already praised by the industry for ‘turning out work-ready staff’. Lakefield (Britain), Kenvale College of Tourism & Hospitality Management (Australia) and Altaviana (Spain) offer successful models for both operative and management training. In Switzerland’s unusual and successful system, apprentices start training in the home and progress to the hospitality industry if they wish.

This workshop highlights these models’ success factors : person-centred training combining expert practitioner role models, short industrial placements and unique Personal and Professional Development modules. This system enables people to balance study with hard work and leisure, and then apply these skills in the workplace to achieve a balanced diet – balanced life.

Chairman: Marjory Clark  Panelists: Mia Nahm, Sara Verdaguer, Elvira Schwelger

Panel 2: Care of the Home as a Life Skill

• Supporting body: IFAP, Institut de Formation a l’assistance au personnes, France

Basic care for the home focuses on providing food and shelter. We require a balanced diet of three meals a day to ensure physical well-being. Similarly the entire home environment is essential for nourishing the human spirit. A home that fosters positive relationships and enhances personal development, allowing each person necessary rest and refreshment becomes a healthy refuge from the demands of daily life. The skills for organizing and managing a home can be taught in the family, in school and in business settings. The family is the first and most natural place to learn the manual skills for caring for a household. The fact that schools and businesses also foster the development of home management skills highlights the importance of housework not only within the family but for society at large. This workshop will deal with the theoretical and practical importance of manual work in the home , the importance of a balanced diet and the overarching value of this work.

Chairman: Valeria Casanova  Panelists: Mary Hunt, Elisabeth Andras and Anita Cormarc

Panel 3: Sociological Views of the Professionalization of the Culinary Field: Service as a Professional Identity

• Supporting body: Lexington College , USA

Sociology’s insights concern individual behaviour in the context of their social environment. This approach can illuminate our understanding of social behaviour around food, eating, cooking and dietary lifestyles. What and how we eat by whom and how it is prepared, tells us about who we are as a society and what we value. This sociology workshop will feature research on the professional approach to caring for individuals, especially from the viewpoint of foodservice and the culinary profession. The workshop will consider broad topics, including the professionalization of the culinary field, service as a professional identity, and women’s role in this field.

Chairman: Marta Elvira  Panelists: Chef Candace Wallace, Jesús Contreras, Michele Grottola

Panel 4: Communication, Culture & Hospitality

• Supporting body: Kenvale College of Tourism & Hospitality Management, Australia

Food is a common need of all human beings. Throughout history, each culture has expressed its individuality through food. Food brings people together as they share with others what is valuable and intimate to them: family and friends. Through food by getting together around the family table, people learn social behaviour, respect for others and ways of communicating and understanding others. These qualities learnt in the family can be transferred to the industry, when caring for people. Hotels, hospitals and other hospitality enterprises should be an extension of the family home, taking into account individual differences based on cultural norms.

Chairman: Isabella Conde  Panelists: Emma-Kate Simons, Peter Tudehope and Dr. Asad Mohsin

Panel 5: Food, Health and Family

• Supporting body: Universidad de Navarra

An adequate diet and life style are important factors to get a high level of health in the population. It is important to educate people from childhood to adopt optimal nutrition habits. Excellence in the Home includes the knowledge of the keys to get the optimum diet to every member of the family. The panel will deal with the benefits of healthy eating from early years to old age.

Chairman: Mark Blackwell  Panelists: Iciar Astiasarán, Alfredo Martínez Hernández, Martina Feulner

Panel 6: Advertising Food: Challenges & Trends

• Supporting body: ACNielsen UK

Advertisers recognise that all products, including food, possess values which go beyond the material ones, and try to establish links between personal values and particular foods or eating habits. They have to find new ways of selling products in a time-starved, throw-away society, targeting groups who are especially sensitive to certain specific messages: shortage of time; revival of traditional tastes; healthy foods, etc.

However, recently, advertising finds itself being challenged by its recipients, the consumers. They ask:

– How can advertising contribute to building up healthy eating habits which lead to a more balanced life?

– What values or associations are most frequently found in today’s food advertising?

– Are people aware of these links, and do they accept or reject them?

Chairman: Charo Sádaba  Panelists: Suzanne Edmond, Leticia Ruiz de Ojeda, John B. Neary, Louise Boitoult

Partners

About the conference

As Winston Churchill once said, ‘We shape our buildings and afterwards our buildings shape us’. Where we live – our house – plays a significant role in the development of our lives. It is where our future is moulded, where we learn to live with others, where our values are defined, where we seek refuge, protection and security.

But the house, that particular space shaped by architecture, transcends that physical space that it occupies and the material of which it is built. It is our mission to explore the difference between the house and a home. By what extraordinary process does a lair become a home?

A home provides security, people who can be trusted and a set of values that remain constant whatever the turbulence and confusion of everyday life. The breakdown of the family, the effects of immigration, the loneliness of the elderly, the consequences of professional mobility, all threaten the very concept of home, especially for our younger generation.

The focus of architects and interior designers is mainly on the physical aspects of space and design. But the concept of home is so much wider. The ideal of Home Renaissance Foundation is to encompass anthropological aspects, the management of space and time, the home as a workplace, the home’s inhabitants and its evolution.

We intend to become the main source of interdisciplinary research on home related issues. It is our vision to return the home to that place in which each individual is respected and encouraged, thus enabling change in the direction of a more humane society.

November 20-21, 2008 | The Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre

Conference Programme

Plenary Sessions

Prof. Lawrence Barth | AA Graduate School

Man, a being who needs a home: The house as architecture of the home

Our lives as creatures of nature and society require foundations being laid in particular places. The idea of home is derived from memories and cultural influences. The role of the home is crucial in the formation of our personality. Architecture has an impact on the home. To create a home requires a building, cultural traditions and the appropriate space. Home, house and place. A home is a place of refuge. The place where the natural world and man’s fundamental needs meet: the material construction in a natural environment. Man needs to live with others in a community. A house in a town therefore has a social dimension, both public and private.

Charles Handy | Writer, broadcaster and lecturer

The home of the future

The home of the future is starting to resemble the home of the past, as more people bring part of their work, their studies and their play into the home. Charles Handy will demonstrate how this is an opportunity as well as a challenge, because, well-managed, it makes the home the ideal school for life.

Sebastian Conran | Managing Director of Studio Conran

Interior design: domestic aesthetics – The kitchen as the hub of the home

Interior design as a discipline. Ergonomics of domestic work. User friendly installations which facilitate mobility. The home needs to move with the dynamics of change. The evolution of the home.

Lorenzo Apicella | Partner of Pentagram

The home as a holistic project

Good design influences and refines people’s behaviour. Harmonious design in a house leads to the creation of a home. Agreeable surroundings inspire an appreciation of beautiful things. People need comfort for their personal development. Balancing the physical and cultural context of the home.

Piers Gough | Architect, founding partner of CZWG Architects

Home in the city

Houses, apartment houses, residential complexes join to create that other home –the city– in which life takes place. However, high density, speculation or budget restraints have derived in an impersonal and purely mathematical definition of residential units. They are thought of as market products or social housing quotas for politicians, but not as tools to promote better quality of life. In this context, developers, public institutions and individuals fight to accomplish a model of living without the chance to choose a model of house or a concept of home… And diversity is so huge that customization is almost a dream. How can we combine mass necessities with unique needs? How can we provide enough living space when housing has become unaffordable? Is the idea of home a utopia in this situation? … or on the contrary, the way to overcome it?

Panel Discussions

Panel 1: Home Management

What definitively turns a house into home is the care of others within that vital space. Without that activity, even when a space encompasses all the physical and aesthetical elements proper to a home, something essential is lacking. The person can only find fulfillment within the home when the house is ‘made to work’ for them, i.e. when its resources and potentialities are successfully managed for the benefit and well being of those living there. The home is a space that once constructed needs to be managed.

Effective home management depends on the attitude of the manager, and secondarily on his or her technical and managerial abilities. That attitude is the understanding that in servicing the basic needs of the person through the work of the home, I create the conditions for well being, allowing them to fully become themselves. To this end, and amid the complexities and constraints of modern living, the home manager will hone and bring into play a host of creative and managerial talents to create excellence on a daily basis.

Chairman: Prof. Julia Prats  Panelists: Janine Nahapiet, Monica Lindstedt, Ignacio Aizpún Viñes

Panel 2: Humanity in city planning 

What is people/children/family-friendly urban planning? What type of household services should be within pedestrian access? Does pedestrian accessibility increase quality of life? Are all urban regeneration schemes family/people friendly? The public and/or private developers’ dilemma: does it make any difference from a friendly urban landscape perspective? Does culture have anything to say? These and other questions will be addressed.

Chairman: Beatriz Plaza  Panelists: Juan Ignacio Vidarte, Michael Hebbert, Paul Askew

Click here to find the Press Release and the Photo Gallery

The Global Home Index (GHI) is a Home Renaissance Foundation initiative, with academic support from the Walmart Centre for Family and Corporate Conciliation (CONFyE) at IAE Business School, Argentina and the Culture, Work and Care Research Centre at INALDE Business School, Colombia.

The Index‘s main objective is to evaluate how the amount of work required to build and care for healthy, thriving home environments is understood and valued. It also aims to raise awareness among survey participants about the value of their own work in the home as a contribution to human development. This will allow us to identify paths to promote and develop greater recognition of the social value of the work involved in caring for our homes.

The quantitative data for this international research project will be collected via an online questionnaire designed by Dr. Belen Mesurado, Researcher with the CONICET (Argentinean National Council for Scientific and Technical Investigation) and will be based on the results of theoretical and qualitative studies carried out amongst opinion leaders in the academic, private, public and third sectors, including 51 experts from 37 different countries from the 5 continents.

CLICK HERE TO PARTICIPATE IN THE SURVEY

CLICK HERE TO GET THE REPORT

About the Conference

As an international and interdisciplinary event the 2011 Excellence in the Home conference, Sustainable Living: Professional Approaches to Housework, aims to deepen our knowledge about how developing and improving professional approaches to housework can enhance the wellbeing of present and future generations.

A sustainable society needs well-rounded people whose fundamental development depends to a great extent on how work of their home is done competently and with awareness of sustainable practices. This work might be thought of as routine, but it is a core occupation central to a sustainable human development.

Furthermore, people’s behavior at home, and particularly the way they do housework, has a continuous but underestimated, impact on society physically (e.g., energy consumption and waste production) as well as culturally and educationally (e.g., new generations learning and adopting sustainable practices).

In light of this, HRF proposes that the individual and familial sphere of work at home is the necessary first step toward enacting larger social change. The conference, then, will discuss how promoting expertise and excellence in training in all the occupations related to work in the home can improve the human environment and quality of life for present and future generations.

March 17-18, 2011 | The Grocers Hall, London EC2R 8AD

Conference Programme

Conference Agenda 

Plenary Sessions

Prof. Sergio Belardinelli | Università di Bologna

The influence of the home on social dynamics

How is the home, and specifically the work of the home, a crucial factor in the way society works and develops? There is a structure of interdependency found in the home and manifested through housework that is often reflected in society. As a care-giving service, the work of the home strengthens family bonds and helps individuals lead healthy, balanced lives. Careful analysis of the professional and occupational aspects of the work of the home, including its psychological and educational effects, is necessary. The home also contributes to society as a school for life, a source of real education and a place where new generations learn and adopt sustainable practices.

Aggie MacKenzie | Television Presenter and Journalist

Healthy environment at home

Both experience and science strongly suggest that clean and efficiently run homes are fundamental for well-being and improved quality of life. Good practice in cleaning and food preparation is crucial to health and safety. It is important to know which products are best suited for each domestic task to manage the home efficiently. However, what if the skills required do not come to a personal naturally? Aggie MacKenzie will describe how she came to possess these skills in order to elucidate on the benefits of training in housework and how big the impact of these ‘new’ homes is on those who live in them.

Prof. Peggie Smith | Former Editor-in-chief of the Harvard Women’s Law Journal

Housework and legal frameworks

At present there is a separation between the legal definition of work and the domestic sphere. This separation often leads to a lack of appreciation for this valuable work and infringes on the rights of those who devote themselves to this work. A holistic understanding of how housework affects the wellbeing of a country could lead to sounder family and labour policies. What possible improvements can be made to family-friendly policies, including parental leave and professional recognition of the work of the home? Consideration will also be given to possibilities within the private sector such as respite care and flexible working arrangements.

Prof. Mauri Ahlberg | University of Helsinki

Human Ecology: Home, work and society

With the current concern for sustainable practices across all levels of society, an in-depth study of what sustainability means in practice and in our everyday lives is both relevant and highly necessary. Our everyday life takes place and shape in the home so it follows that a prescription of how to attain sustainability on both social and environmental levels must take the microcosm of the home into account. Attention to the dilemmas of the micro-environment that each individual and each family face and deal with in the home on a daily basis is an important first step towards enacting larger social change. How can a greater expertise in housework enhance the wellbeing of present and future generations?

Panel Discussions

Panel 1: The role businesses play in sustainable domestic development

When it comes to sustainable development, businesses have a large part to play towards achieving goals. People are in constant contact with businesses as employees, customers and community members. In this panel, business executives, researchers and policy makers will share best practices in areas related to sustainability. The key issues that surround this topic, such as corporate social responsibility practices will be discussed and evaluated. Other key issues include accessible living for people of all abilities and the environmental impact of any or all of these new possibilities. Sustainable community development links into corporate social responsibility initiatives and its relational dimensions.

Chairman: Marta Elvira    Panelists: Esther Martinez Cuesta, David Stover, Helen Kersley, Marie-Claude Hemmings

Panel 2: Management-technical, interpersonal and personal competences
of housework

This panel will discuss the possibilities and challenges of categorising homemaking as a profession. Does housework have the characteristics commonly attributed to professions? Can it be argued that homemaking requires knowledge and practical skills with the corresponding recognised qualifications; ethical commitment to the interests of clients/customers; organisation – homemakers as a community of practiioners with norms, sanctions and barriers to entry; social recognition: prestige/status, appropriate salaries. Is the alternative to classify houseworkers as craft workers? Housework is much more than a set of technical tasks, it is a values system in which science, art, psychology, culture, skills and a capacity for management all play a part. Furthermore, interaction in the home is the basis of an individual’s socialisation.

Chairman: Julia Prats        Panelists: Michael-Burkhard Piorkowsky, Charlie Browne, Ada Fung, Dr. David Prendergast

Call for Papers & Workshops

Download Call for Papers 

• Workshop 1: Professional Skills for Hospitality and the Home
• Workshop 2: The Home and Sustainability
• Workshop 3: Educational and Training Models for the Work of the Home
• Workshop 4: Philosophical and Anthropological Issues Involved in Housework
• Workshop 5: Home-Hospitality Interface

The Home Renaissance Foundation successfully launched its inaugural policy publication at an event in the House of Lords. A group of experts and other invited guests were on hand to listen to speeches by Lord Best, President of the Local Government Association, and HRF chairman Bryan Sanderson.

The presentation of ‘Bricks & Mortar Across Generations: A Think Piece on Intergenerational Living in the UK’ was made by HRF Research Coordinator Simca Simpson. Dr Samantha Callan then spoke as a respondent to the think piece.

Some of the issues raised by the study formed part of a discussion at the event, led by the veteran broadcaster and author Charles Handy. Mr Handy said his own experience of sharing a home with a younger generation – his daughter – informed his belief that it was an idea whose time had come. “Norms are changing,” he said. “The cost of housing will bring us together, like it or not.” He said that, although many people were propelled into intergenerational living because of economic circumstances, others had realised that it had lots to offer.

“It is a chance to share wisdom. I am shown how to use an iPad, they are shown how to play Scrabble!” He said intergenerational living should not be unduly romanticised. “To work best,” he said, “takes rules and a door bell.”

Like Mr Handy, the HRF chairman Bryan Sanderson, also lives in a house that is home to several generations of the same family; grandparents, parents and grandchildren. He noted that Western societies could learn much from the models of intergenerational living taken for granted in the developing world. And he described the housing crisis and potential solutions like intergenerational living as “the most significant political issue of our time”.\A0

Dr Callan drew attention to the example of Singapore, where intergenerational living is encouraged through the taxation system. She said that intergenerational living was vital if society was to avoid an epidemic of loneliness, while commenting that: “There have been massive changes in families – but not in the housing structures around them.” Dr Callan, a mother of teenaged boys, said that intergenerational living was no longer seen as a mark of failure. On the contrary “…it is increasingly seen as a sign of family strength for generations to live together.”

One of the delegates at the launch praised the HRF’s choice of subject and noted that intergenerational living was the subject of the next World Congress on Families.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE POLICY REPORT

Home Renaissance Foundation’s Annual Conference 2014 took place in Bogota, Colombia from December 3-5 2014.  

The topic of the Conference was “Development & Sustainability: Care in Daily Life”. The schedule included a day of workshops on different topics as well as a day and a half of conference and paper presentations.  

It was co-hosted by the Universidad de la Sabana and Home Renaissance Foundation in association with INALDE’s Culture, Work and Care Research Centre.  

The conference examined the relationship between care and sustainability in two spheres of daily life -work and home- with the goal of:  

• Establishing a link between the concepts of home, work, care and sustainability
• Reformulating the definition and structure of work in both the public and private (domestic) spheres
• Catalysing innovation on the topics of development, sustainability and care in daily lifE

 Visit the Conference Website for more information.

The Aula Volpi was absolutely packed by 2 pm on Wednesday 14th November as students brought in more and more chairs. They were treated to an afternoon of insights in the first panel session: Social and Anthropological Aspects of the Home. Professor Rafael Alvira started proceedings with a philosophical overview of the home as the radical origin of personal and social identity; he stressed the importance of communication, friendship and how having a name is a key factor in one’s identity. Jean-Claude Kaufmann’s presentation focussed on how happiness in the home is constructed through many small and seemingly insignificant actions especially cooking and conversations between the family members. Guiliana Mandich followed explaining the importance of boundaries in the home and the challenge of technological developments in recent decades on these boundaries.

This panel session was followed by the Italian and English research paper presentations. The first Italian research session was entitled Intimacy, Domesticity Identity and Relationship. Topics included gender identity and the home; domestic work between the crisis of intimacy and the rediscovery of self and the question of recognition and identity in family life. There were two English research paper tracks in this session. The theme of the first session was Living Styles, Urban Identity and the Home examining the role of architecture on public and private space and its impact on the changing home, domestic identity and private behaviours. Presenters came from Queen’s University, Belfast and the Universities of Valencia and Navarra in Spain. The second English research paper theme was Home & Family with presenters coming from Kenya and Spain.

The second day of Home Renaissance Foundation’s International Conference organised by academics from New Zealand and Rome opened with the second Italian and English research paper presentations. The Italian session: Family, Conciliation and Domesticity, discussing personal identity and family networks in the home; work and family between conflict and being complementary and domesticity and transformation of female identity. The two English sessions were entitled Embodiment and Domestic Spaces and Home in a Postmodern Society. Among the presenters there were academics from Israel and South America.

The first plenary panel session for the day commenced with keynote addresses by Professors from Rome and Pavia. Susanna Pallini and Marita Rampazi provided evidence and data from children who had suffered domestic violence in the home and from young women who had to leave their homes and who brought with them memoirs of their former abodes: both material and virtual – particularly personal computers. Professor Vidotto, the third speaker in this session, concentrated on how the architecture of modern homes is related to identity.

After a break, Fiorenza Deriu from Universita La Sapienza spoke about Intergenerational Relationships and Family Care: Rethinking Women’s Identity, she was followed by an inspired lecture given by Guiliana Kantza of Istituto Freudiano in Milan entitled, Being a Woman in the Contemporary Confusion.

After lunch the final Italian and English research papers were delivered. The first concurrent English research paper session: Professional Work of the Home: Between the Market and Gratuity included research investigations on: Work of the Home: a True Profession and Recognition of a Professional Course on the Home: The Public-Private Tension. The second English session examined care work and identity.

The third plenary session looked at Domestic Space and Domestic Work: New Public-Private Interactions. Professor Franca Alacevich and Annalisa Tonarelli from Florence University spoke about the cutting edge research they are involved in which shows how the new generation of housewives differ from their predecessors. Caroline Sanderson spoke in English about the way work and home interact and the research that Home Renaissance Foundation is fostering on this topic globally. She gave a critique of the terminology used for the relationship between these concepts explaining that work-home interface was her preferred expression and used the image of the seashore as a metaphor for work and home. Federica Rossi Gasparrini shared experiences from her many years of work with women’s organisations; she emphasized how choice in homemaking is a priority for women.

Leaving Aula Volpi late on Thursday afternoon I reflected on the many ideas I had listened to during the conference both in the keynote speeches and at the Research paper presentations in different Universita Tre venues. Three things struck me particularly: the consistently high quality of papers, the interdisciplinary nature of the proceedings and how international the conference was with participants from as far afield as Israel, Australia, Dubai, Philippines, Colombia and Kenya in addition to representatives from a variety of European countries including France, Ireland, Italy Spain and the UK.

Here you are the Conference Programme 

INALDE Business School, in collaboration with the School of Psychology at the University of La Sabana under the inspiration of Home Renaissance Foundation, created the Latin American Congress on Sustainability, Care and Daily Life, a platform for interdisciplinary dialogue between academics, professionals, entrepreneurs, consultants, and anyone interested in thinking about these issues and their linkages. This congress sought to answer the questions raised above from existing academic work and research at companies and organisations.

On 11th and 12th October 2011 researchers and practitioners from eight Latin American countries met to exchange views, research reports, goals and practices. The Congress was opened by the Rector of the University of La Sabana, explaining precisely how overcoming the crisis of the last flood on campus brought a positive response from those who integrate the organisation and its environment, evidencing how important it is for the institution to care for people and how it maintains this as a vital criteria for decision making.

In her lecture The Revolution of Care: a proposal for sustainable development, Dr. Maria Pia Chirinos, a professor at the University of Piura, the University of the Holy Cross, and a Visiting Scholar at Notre Dame Centre for Ethics and Care, and in line with thinkers like Amartya Sen, Arlie Hochschild and Benedict XVI, proposed a shift that allows the economy to focus on the development of the human capacities of each person, recognising that Care meets human needs and that economic models recognise that value; in politics, that laws protect and foster the work in care, paid and unpaid work, as really necessary work; and in culture, to break down elitist visions and to reward and “honour the work of social care” as proposed by Hochschild.

Dr. Jonathan Tudge, professor at the University of North Carolina, witnessed through his research in different cultures: European, African and Latin American how daily life and care practices have a direct impact on development. This impact is both on children and their development of skills and on adults affecting the level of their contribution to the development of the societies to which they belong.

The levels of poverty, health and development of a society are affected by the family structures and dynamics that take place in the households, says Dr. Sophia Aguirre, professor of the Catholic University of America. When analysing the family structure and other characteristics of households and its impact on savings, wealth and poverty, one discovers that the structure of the family, the area in which the family lives, the gender of the family-head, the level of education, interpersonal relationships that develop, all reveal important and determinant elements. Through macroeconomic models, it can be established, for example, that in the case of Guatemala, and only within households that have college or higher education, marriage is the largest contributor to wealth and poverty reduction. This data drives us, as suggested by Dr. Aguirre, towards a new definition of sustainable development that takes into account the definition of economic development that understands the decision making process of the economic agent from an integral and holistic view of the person, i.e. taking into account the social dimension: both within the family and in the society.

There were 8 panels dealing with different subject areas:

Women and Work: This panel examined the contributions, constraints and challenges for economic, human and social sustainability of the massive introduction of women to the work force.

Family and Care: The care of relationships and family needs, as well as family structures and how they impact positively on sustainability, were the main parts discussed in this panel.

Sustainability and Care at Work: The results of research and business cases in the presentations made by these panellists showed that that the sustainability of a company depends on how organisations care for their employees.

Family and Social Function: The social role of the family and its impact on sustainability became the focus of the discussion.

Learning and Sustainability: How we learn and where become key positive scenarios if we relate them to care. In this panel learning and care were addressed from different perspectives: home and work, from the university to media.

Health and Care: As proposed in this panel, care requires some state of the art skills of the caregiver that vary depending on where, when and how it is done: a home or specialised institution; the relationship with the person who’s being cared for; care policy at urban and rural level, and so on.

Family and Work: In this panel, work-life balance as the core issue that integrates care in both areas and the sustainability objectives of businesses and households were reviewed.

Sustainability and Ecology: In this panel research on the environment was related to care practices used within families and businesses.

At the Committee of National Experts, the presentations of Dr. Lilian Patricia Rodriguez, an expert in development of the School of Psychology at the University of La Sabana; Martha Lucia Velazquez, President of Colempresarias and former Presidential Adviser on Women’s.

Equality, Oscar Ostegui, expert on strategies, mechanisms and tools for research and management in different social contexts in favour of socio-economic development, and Santiago Madriñán, Executive Director of the Colombian Business Council for Sustainable Development (CECODES), shed light on how development is affected by stimulating elements during the growth and infancy of people; how the work-input of women requires a paradigm shift and more flexibility; how the ways of measuring poverty can hide and / or show positive family dynamics and practices for development; and how our blindness to the fragility of the environment coupled with the limited natural resources like water, the excessive desire for wealth, especially in the mining sector in Colombia, jeopardises human sustainability.

The objective of the Conference to create a space for reflection and dialogue on sustainability issues, care and daily life was fulfilled, and joint research projects to further develop these issues between business and academics that originated thanks to the Congress promise a bright future of awareness and development of practices that ensure sustainability in everyday human life.

Home Renaissance Foundation organised a workshop in Rome on Strategic Communication for organisations promoting the home on 30th and 31st May 2008. The workshop linked the charity with similar organisations from other countries and enabled participants, who were from France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, the UK and the USA, to understand the charity’s vision in greater depth. Experts from the fields of anthropology, home management, communication and marketing took part in the seminar.