Do you remember what you thought of New Year’s Eve 2019? Guaranteed for nothing that followed shortly after in March! Well, that’s how it is with crises, they usually come without much notice, throw everything overboard and suddenly you find yourself in a situation that was unthinkable a short time before. And in 2020 we all felt what it felt like. But there are and have been in our society who have not only known this feeling since Corona.
Crises can only be overcome by people
How it is when suddenly familiar terrain breaks away and you’re in front of a big one Wall of uncertainty stands, people know who, for example, suddenly no home have more. People who lose their home or their familiar social environment.
But there are also all those who do this Don’t leave people alone in their crisis: Those who volunteer in the Aid to refugees or the homeless engage. Those who found associations to help old people out of loneliness. And those who stand up for people on the fringes of our society.
Regardless of whether we call it charity, solidarity or cohesion, without the willingness to do something not only for yourself but also for others, our society would not function.
Many feel more solidarity than we think
OK, we are all not immune to the fact that our worldview is also affected by that social media being affected. And then one can quickly get the impression that the world consists only of misanthropes, cynics: inside and constant complainers, who – if they should read these lines here – dismiss all of this as “do-gooders rubbish”.
But let’s have one Look at the facts instead of “exactly my humor comments”. Because as a study by the Bertelsmann Stiftung shows, that is Sense of cohesion in Germany, contrary to many claims, even during the Corona crisis gone up. While in February 46 percent of those questioned saw cohesion in Germany at risk, it was only 36 percent in May / June. The impression that people do not care about other people has also fallen from 41 percent to 21 percent.
The So society doesn’t split at all as we may often think. This can be hard to believe when you look at the last few pictures Corona demos look, because after that one quickly thinks that our society is split into two irreconcilable large camps. The Bertelsmann study also reveals an interesting picture of this: at the beginning of the study, only 19 percent of those surveyed showed confidence in the federal government; In addition, many people stated that it was largely during the first few months Solidarity and consideration to have experienced.
Cohesion is felt above all by those who are doing well
Before we get here though too rosy a picture Of course we also want to draw Downsides and downsides call. Because Corona has us too social differences again with all the might, and that has a massive impact on the perception. Because certain social groups feel the positive effects less or hardly at all. “For those who were previously disadvantaged, the situation in the crisis is even more difficult,” is how Kai Unzicker from the Bertelsmann Foundation (source: Bertelsmann Foundation) summarizes the analysis.
This mainly affects people with lower levels formal education, low economic status or Migration background. According to the study, people who live alone or are single parents also feel less of a sense of togetherness and are more afraid of the future. At this point we can already hear the prophecies of doom of all those who are now saying: “Ha, I knew it. Your talk of solidarity, it’s all so easy to say when the banana bread sizzles in the oven while you are doing a few video conferences in your home office – you contaminated do-gooders in your urban apartments in old buildings. “
But how about someone else conclusion: Solidarity means that the people who are doing well are there for those who are not doing so well. And that’s exactly what happens in our country.
Volunteering and social start-ups are growing steadily
According to the Allensbacher market and advertising media analysis, 17.11 million people volunteered in Germany this year (source: statista.com). An empirical one study of the German Institute for Economic Research eV showed in 2019 that the volunteer work especially at Schoolchildren and pensioners has increased. The proportion of people aged 17 and over who do voluntary work rose from 27 percent in 1990 to 32 percent in 2017.
But it’s not just the good old voluntary work in the club that is doing better than often thought. For some years now, a mixture of entrepreneurship and social responsibility has been developing, the so-called Social entrepreneurship. These social entrepreneurs put the social before the financial return in order to solve the great challenges of our time: climate change, child and old age poverty, digitization, reform backlog in the education system, integration of refugees or demographic change are just a few examples that these companies are dealing with .
That here is a really complete one new entrepreneurship grows up, a look at the shows Start-up scene overall: So one analysis of the German Startup Monitor 2018 of the Federal Association of German Startups eV, in which the participants were able to indicate their social, ecological and entrepreneurial orientation that 38.1% of the startups surveyed see themselves as social entrepreneurship.
Real do-gooders
We want you some of these many people and startups, the others help out of crises and up for one better world insert, introduce:
Viva con Agua for example, has been working on it for all people since it was founded Access to safe drinking water to enable. The social start-up The money hangs on the trees produced with the help of disadvantaged people delicious juices and spritzers. Oll inclusive is committed to Senior: inside and people over 60 in one open Society to integrate instead of forgetting them. The Union Hanseatic Help eV helps people who have been hit particularly hard in life by means of Clothing donations and with many other projects. Whether homeless, refugees, or students, single parents or senior citizens, here everyone finds: r help, die: who needs them.
And then there is Ewald Lienen, the celebrity Face of the do-gooder initiative, for whom a social and open togetherness is a real affair of the heart, not only in his function as technical director of FC St. Pauli. Ewald Lienen, himself not an easy childhood thanks to the motto: “Learn, read, play football“The way to a successful life. As a footballer, he managed to play his way up to the first Bundesliga. After the end of his active football career, he first worked as a coach, and from 2014 as head coach at FC St. Pauli. He has been the technical director there since 2017.
Through his Work with disabled children and young people he came into direct contact with reality. Since then he has also used his celebrities to get involved through projects especially for disadvantaged people on the fringes of society.
For all people who are committed to help and thus to make a contribution to society: Just do it. And if everyone is committed to the small things, something really good can result for everyone. Because crisis or not, we believe in it: It’s better together!
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