Public administrations owe money to 39% of social organizations in Catalonia; that is, four out of ten are experiencing payment delays for services or activities they provide. This situation is causing cash flow problems. This is one of the findings of the report. The Yearbook of Employment in the Third Social Sector of Catalonia 2025 The report, prepared by the Confederation, the employers' association for these non-profit organizations, was presented this Wednesday in Barcelona.

The collection of signatures has already begun for one of the first popular legislative initiatives (ILP) in the field of social services in Catalonia: a proposal that seeks to safeguard care for people with disabilities through a non-profit model. The initiative, driven by a group of families and individuals connected to the disability community, originated from the concerns of a group of mothers and fathers in Girona, but it unites the entire Catalan disability community. The action advocates that the exclusive social contracting of services for this group be managed by non-profit organizations. The objective is to guarantee personalized, comprehensive, and continuous support, free from economic interests and focused on the real needs of individuals. The Parliament of Catalonia accepted the proposal for processing on October 9, and the official act of authorizing the notaries took place on October 20. Starting that week, the challenge for the organizing group is to collect 50,000 signatures within 120 days, an essential requirement to open the parliamentary debate.

There are people who create problems and there are people who solve them. Individual happiness and social coexistence are built day by day, gesture by gesture. Problems are there, of course. Life is entropy; we tend toward chaos. Solvers are usually discreet, hardworking, and kind. Those who revel in problems—problem-mongers?—can be very conspicuous and noisy, and appear to be vigilantes. "Immigrants out! Politicians out! Catalans are dying!" And they start shouting.

Verónica López was evicted from the apartment where she lived with two children—one of them under eleven—and, although she earns a salary, she found it impossible to find another decent place to live due to prohibitive market prices. For a few months, she was homeless, while her two children stayed with their grandmother temporarily. This situation lasted until Badalona's social services suggested she join Vesta, a pilot project launched in 2021 by a combination of third-sector entities, Besòs city councils, the Generalitat (Catalan government), and the Barcelona Provincial Council. This project sought, precisely, to prevent single mothers, who have a history of gender-based violence behind them, from becoming single mothers.

The Minister of Social Rights, Mònica Martínez Bravo, announced this Monday morning that the Government is starting work to carry out a "comprehensive transformation" of the General Directorate of Child and Adolescent Care (DGAIA). Martínez Bravo said this after a meeting with third sector social entities and schools, proposing "proposals" that the entities have been demanding for years, and will set up two working groups with experts: one will be in charge of how to improve prevention with families, to detect risk situations to reduce the withdrawal of guardianship, while the other group will focus on the conditions of the centers. The Minister has said that the current is a "moment of catharsis" for the entire 12 years in care who was sexually exploited should be a "window of opportunity" to address, now, a new strategy and planning for the entire system, according to sources present at the meeting explained in ARA. -BK_SLT_LNA~ better, but they have not given details of the calendar or what the changes will be. The case of the minor and the shortcomings that experts and minors highlight, the minister admitted in a brief appearance before the media that the problems at the DGAIA are evident: "There are management difficulties, a lack of resources and protocols that sometimes do not work," she said, adding that the agency must adapt to the "social complexity" and new challenges.

Dismay in the third sector: Catalan human rights activist Enric Morist (Igualada 1965) died suddenly this Friday, according to ARA, of a heart attack. Morist had been elected as the new president of the Third Sector Roundtable—which brings together 37 federations and 3,000 organizations fighting poverty—barely six months before, but he had been involved for much longer, having served as vice president since 2013. He was also a well-known figure for his previous work on the Roundtable, as coordinator of the Catalan Red Cross. The activist was 59 years old, married, and had three children, one of whom was adopted in Bosnia.

The brutal attack that the new Trump administration and its techno-oligarchy allies are carrying out against everything that sounds public is so exaggerated that it may seem simply bizarre to us, and as such become part of what we discuss with our work colleagues and friends when we have a moment. But the matter is much more serious, since when public spending, public servants, taxes and all the so-called institutional chiringuitos are attacked, behind it there are essential public policies and services for a large part of the population. On the other hand, it is not just another eccentricity of the new Trumpian era, but in Europe (and in Catalonia) there are many supporters of applying the same logic a public sector that is accused of wasting resources, of caring only about those who take advantage of the system and of having grown in an excessive way.

First the pandemic and now the crisis in Ukraine. The third sector in Europe is being forced to rethink – and digitise – by leaps and bounds in order to serve all those in need. And Alfonso Lara Montero has even been asked to explain this at the Mobile World Congress (MWC). He is the director of the European Social Network, a European network that brings together the managers of the main third sector organisations in the continent. He arrived in Barcelona thanks to m4Social, organised by the Catalonia's Committee for the Third Sector, and talks to ARA as the big question of how to take care of the refugees from the war in Ukraine takes hold in the public debate.