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July 11, 2025, Areguá, Paraguay – Adrian Dominican Sister Xiomara Méndez-Hernández, OP, joined other Dominican Sisters marking fewer than 25 years of profession in a special Encuentro of the Confederation of Dominican Sisters from Latin America and the Caribbean (CODALC – Spanish acronym), held June 19-22, 2025, in Areguá, Paraguay.
Sister Xiomara is the Executive Director of the Dominican Sisters Conference (DSC), a collaborative organization of many of the U.S.-based Dominican Congregations. She described CODALC as the Latin American and Caribbean version of the DSC. Both of these organizations belong to the Dominican Sisters International Confederation (DSIC), as do organizations of Dominican Sisters in Africa, Asia-Pacific, and Europe.
CODALC celebrated its 50th anniversary last year, and some Adrian Dominican Sisters were part of the organization in its early years. “We have a presence in CODALC,” she said. The Adrian Dominican Sisters from the Dominican Republic and Sisters from North America who have served in the Dominican Republic and several other countries in Latin America were involved in CODALC from its early days, she said.
A native of the Dominican Republic, Sister Xiomara was invited to the CODALC gathering and had the opportunity to see “how alive is the Dominican Charism in Latin America. Those women are so committed, and they have so much joy and are so busy.”
The more than 40 participants in the Encuentro spent their days in conversations of hope in Spanish and Portuguese, Sister Xiomara said. With the many differences among the participants, inclusivity was an important aspect of the Encuentro. “We made sure that no one was left out and that everyone had a voice at the table,” especially during small-group discussions, she explained. “We focused on Dominican joy and what it means to be a preacher and to have a voice. We tried to dive deep.”
Sister Xiomara gave two presentations: “Prophetic Women from the Dominican Spirituality Perspective” and “Dominican Women Dreaming and Preaching with Hope.” During one presentation, she spoke about her experience at a gathering of DSIC Sisters under the age of 65 in Caleruega, Spain, in 2024, when the Sisters from each continent developed a manifesto, their plan of action for their region. The Sisters presented their manifestos during a follow-up gathering in Rome in May 2025 with elected congregational leaders.
Participants in the CODALC Encuentro focused on their own action plan to implement the manifesto. “It was very well conceived, and they came up with their own ideas on how to live out the manifesto,” Sister Xiomara said.
Sister Xiomara also experienced the work of Dominicans in Paraguay in a sightseeing tour of the ministries of the Dominican men in Barrio “El Bañado” (the Bathed Neighborhood) in the capital Asunción. The tour included a neighborhood near the bank of the Paraguay River whose homes are destroyed by flooding from heavy rainfall – which happens consistently and unpredictably every 1-5 years. She learned of a project to build a wall to protect 1,500 of the 2,500 homes affected by the flooding. “It was so moving: the faithful accompaniment of our brothers for more than 40 years,” she said. “They live in the neighborhood with the others.”
The Dominican men – Friars and Brothers – in El Bañado are generous in many ways, not only in their dedicated ministry, Sister Xiomara said. They have a foundation and “are in the process of raising awareness through raising funds” promoting the dignity of the marginalized people who live in their neighborhood. They were also generous in their hospitality to the Sisters, providing a snack of flatbread and special tea for the sightseers, she said.
Sister Xiomara was pleased with the “blessing of reconnecting with these women with whom I had so much history.” During the 2024 celebration in Caleruega, she said, she “learned so much about our deep connections with CODALC and the DSC, and how many Sisters of our own congregations were an integral part of it.”
Caption for above feature photo: Participants in the June 2025 Encuentro sponsored by the Dominican Conference of Sisters pause for a group photo.
By Maxwell Homans Shareholder Advocacy Associate, Mercy Investment Services, Inc.
The Portfolio Advisory Board filed a proposal this year at Dollar General, asking the retail dollar store to adopt a comprehensive human rights policy aligned with international human rights standards. Mercy Investment Services worked closely with the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility’s (ICCR) Advancing Worker Justice Initiative to advocate for this resolution, carrying forward engagement with Dollar General following the company’s unsatisfactory responses to previous human rights concerns.
A previous resolution in 2023 had asked the retail chain for a safety audit to address reports of unsafe conditions, understaffing, and violence at many of its stores. The 2023 resolution received a majority vote with more than 77% shareholder support. However, the company surprisingly refused to engage with the shareholders who had led this proposal. Dollar General chose instead to conduct an audit privately, choosing a “union-busting” law firm as the auditor; the audit found minimal problems with company policies.
Since that time, Dollar General agreed to settlements with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) for unsafe store conditions and illegal union-busting activities. The company was fined $12 million by OSHA in July 2024 for repeat safety violations, and in July 2023 the NLRB ruled that Dollar General was practicing “blatant hallmark unfair labor practices” based on their corporate response to store workers attempting to unionize in Connecticut. In addition, workers have reported continued understaffing, low pay, and feeling unsafe at stores, with no meaningful changes since the audit and agreement with OSHA to increase safety protocols.
Recognizing the need for further engagement on worker safety and rights, the proposal the PAB filed this proxy season focused on requesting a corporate-wide human rights policy, asking for greater protections for workers and customers still experiencing unsafe conditions in stores.
To highlight the voices of Dollar General workers calling for change, ICCR co-hosted a webinar briefing ahead of Dollar General’s annual meeting to build support for the human rights proposal. Dollar General workers told personal stories of receiving violent threats at work, being ordered to block fire exits, and feeling embarrassed that peer retailers offered safer conditions and higher pay for their workers. Investors also made the case for a human rights policy, connecting worker testimonies to widespread financial risks and penalties faced by Dollar General.
The human rights proposal received 22.9% of the shareholder vote at the company’s annual meeting, falling short of a majority, but high enough to allow investors to re-file the proposal next year. PAB and our fellow investors will continue our push to improve workers’ rights and human rights in Dollar General stores.
As workers demand more from U.S. retailers, it is imperative that these companies uphold workers’ legal rights to organizing and collective bargaining and a safe and healthy workplace. Stores including Whole Foods, Trader Joe’s, and Starbucks have all seen their workforces unionize in recent years, and with Dollar General surpassing 20,000 stores in the U.S. this past year, responsible business means embracing workers’ rights, not systematically denying them.
Workers and shareholders will continue to speak up to ask companies to respect human rights; to be successful, companies like Dollar General need to listen.