People's solidarity

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People's solidarity
logo
legal form non-profit registered association
founding October 17, 1945
Seat Berlin , Germany
motto With one another - for one another - living solidarity
purpose Social policy , welfare
Chair Wolfram Friedersdorff (President), Olaf Wenzel (Vice President), Christian Herrgott (Vice President)
Managing directors Alexander Lohse
sales 1,564,000 euros
(Federal Association 2017)
Employees 19,226 (2017)
Volunteers 21,000 (2017)
Members 145,000 (2018)
Website www.volkssolidaritaet.de
People's solidarity in Berlin-Mitte

The People's Solidarity (VS) is an aid organization founded in Dresden in October 1945 . It spread in the following months in the Soviet occupation zone of Germany. It was a mass organization in the GDR and had an important role in the care of the elderly, to which it had to be limited in the last decades of the GDR. Since German reunification , the field of work has also included the care of the chronically ill, those in need of care, the socially disadvantaged, as well as children and young people.

In 2006 the total turnover was around 500 million euros.

Wolfram Friedersdorff is President of People's Solidarity .

Volkssolidarität is a member of the German Paritätischer Wohlfahrtsverband , on whose board it is represented by President Wolfram Friedersdorff.

history

The founding day of the people's solidarity is October 17, 1945, on which the appeal "People's solidarity against Wintersnot!", Jointly written by the SPD , KPD , CDU , LDPD as well as the Protestant and Catholic Church and the regional committee of the Free German Trade Union Confederation in Dresden - initially for Saxony - was signed, which was published in the " Sächsische Volkszeitung " on October 19, 1945.

On May 20, 1946, the “Central Committee of People's Solidarity” was founded for the Soviet zone of occupation, consisting of representatives of the parties, various social committees, the churches and government agencies. Popular solidarity during this period concentrated on those who had to suffer the hardest from the consequences of the war. They were children, the elderly and the sick, displaced persons and returning prisoners of war.

In 1949, a competition open to the GDR was announced for the design of one's own badge or signet . The winner of this competition was the painter and graphic artist Willy Blume (1902–1991) from Gardelegen . In the 1960s, the upper legend unit • peace was replaced by the word people , at the same time the two dots on the left and right that framed the word solidarity disappeared . This signet is the club emblem that is still valid today.

In the 1950s the character of popular solidarity changed. Her primary, later exclusive, task became the care of the elderly. From 1956 the creation of veterans' clubs for the social and cultural care of the elderly began. Ernst-Günter Lattka writes: "... it was not until the mid-1950s that the 'Community of People's Solidarity' transformed into a mass and member organization."

From the early 1970s the people's solidarity worked under the motto "Activity - Sociability - Care". Her tasks included the organization of socially useful activities such as house maintenance, neighborhood help or child care in so-called pensioner brigades . In veterans' clubs, popular solidarity promoted the intellectual and cultural life of the elderly. However, this work also had “political-propagandistic implications”: friendship with the Soviet Union and “aversion to imperialism ” should be promoted. In the welfare sector, the outpatient care of elderly people in need of help and their provision with meals was particularly important.

The association took on tasks in the area of ​​welfare work, comparable to the free welfare work . After 1990, numerous associations changed into registered associations .

Field of activity

The People's Solidarity is primarily active in East Germany. According to the association's statutes, the people's solidarity is committed to “basic humanistic and democratic values ​​and advocates social justice”. In the statutes, the association describes itself as a “uniform, democratically organized, non-profit, politically and denominationally independent, independent association”. Wolfram Friedersdorff , Olaf Wenzel (chairman of the Volkssolidarität Landesverband Sachsen eV) and Christian Herrgott (chairman of the Volkssolidarität Pößneck eV) sit on the federal executive committee of Volkssolidarität. Gunnar Winkler , who was in office from 2002 to 2014, was Honorary President.

Volkssolidarität sees itself as a social and welfare association with three pillars :

  • Member association (e.g. club life in the local, interest and self-help groups and meeting places with social and cultural offers)
  • social service provider ( meals on wheels , educational, care, advisory and leisure activities)
  • socio-political representation of interests.

The organizational structure consists of the federal association, six regional associations in Berlin, Brandenburg, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia as well as (2009) 98 district, city and regional associations. The state associations and a large part of the district, city and regional associations are legally independent as registered associations.

The People's Solidarity had around 145,000 members in 2018 (2017: 151,000, 2016: 165,000, 2014: 200,000; 2011 still 244,000) in 3,027 member or local groups as well as 19,226 full-time and around 19,000 volunteer employees. The members are primarily of retirement age (average age 77, as of 2015), the number of members in 2000 was around 450,000. According to the Federal Association of People's Solidarity, events with around 2.9 million visitors were held in the association's 460 leisure and meeting centers as well as meeting centers. Members of choirs, sports and hiking groups as well as artistic and creative circles are active in interest groups. Volunteers, sometimes still referred to as people's helpers as in the GDR era , organize the activities of the member association, inform members about association offers and events, congratulate on anniversaries, solicit donations and collect contributions. They arrange help in emergency situations, organize or provide neighborhood help .

There are local groups (the traditional form of organization such as an association , but independent associations were not permitted in the GDR until 1990) and interest groups . Interest groups are oriented towards the collective shaping of interests. They can also be part of a local group and often meet in meeting places for people's solidarity. Under self-help groups , a third form, sufferers are to understand the work as members of the People's Solidarity or as separate classes under the umbrella of the People's Solidarity.

Volkssolidarität has also been active in the field of child and youth work since the 1990s. The association is responsible for 365 day-care centers with more than 36,000 places. According to the association, there are also 14 children's and youth homes and open youth work, which is carried out in 41 leisure and recreation facilities. In 2008, the Freie Gymnasium Borsdorf became part of the district association Volkssolidarität Leipziger Land / Muldental e. V founded.

In the care sector , the association can refer to 155 outpatient care services, 35 day care facilities, 55 nursing homes, one retirement home and 15 short-term care facilities for almost 37,000 people. According to the Federal Association, offers of social counseling are currently being made in 276 contact and advice centers.

In the area of ​​social policy, Volkssolidarität works with other associations such as the Social Association Germany (SoVD) and the Social Association VdK Germany, as well as with trade unions . For example, in 2008, together with the SoVD, the social cutback was stopped. Strengthening the welfare state started and a. collected around 220,000 signatures. “Social summits” were organized in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Thuringia and Berlin together with several associations. The association is active in the field of socio-political interest representation and is also invited to hearings by the German Bundestag when laws are being prepared and discussed. The Social Science Research Center Berlin-Brandenburg e. In 2006, 2008, 2010 and 2012, V. published the social report on behalf of the Federal Association of People's Solidarity - data and facts on the social situation in the new federal states . In 2012 the People's Solidarity joined the Umfairteile alliance .

The People's Solidarity is also active in the area of anti-discrimination . The Landesverband Berlin, for example, offers advice for men against domestic violence in order to prevent it and enable those affected to live a peaceful family life.

Award

  • 1985 Star of Friendship between Nations
  • 2009 Berlin prevention award for the project "Advice for men - against violence"
  • 2013 nominated for the European Crime Prevention Award by the Federal Government for "Advice for Men - Against Violence"

literature

  • Susanne Angerhausen: Radical Organizational Change. How “People's Solidarity” survived German unification. (= Civic engagement and nonprofit sector, volume 10) Opladen: Leske + Budrich, 2003, ISBN 3-8100-3609-9 (also Humboldt University Berlin, dissertation 2001)
  • Gunnar Winkler : Together for one another. On the history of people's solidarity 1945 to 2010 , ed. von Volkssolidarität Bundesverband, Berlin 2010. pdf

Web links

Commons : People's Solidarity  - Collection of Images

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ People's solidarity: Annual report 2016/2017 (brochure, PDF)
  2. ↑ Tina Groll: At the expense of the people. In: ZEIT ONLINE. March 24, 2011, accessed April 1, 2020 .
  3. ↑ a b Armin Fuhrer: SEILSCHAFTEN: “Consistently partisan”. In: Focus Online. August 20, 2007, accessed May 23, 2019 .
  4. ↑ a b c Norbert F. Pötzl: A child of the GDR . In: Der Spiegel . No. 27 , 2000 ( online - July 3, 2000 ).
  5. ^ Gunnar Winkler: On the history of people's solidarity 1945 to 2010. Berlin 2010, p. 6.
  6. ↑ Ernst-Günter Lattka: Hurray, we're alive! 60 years of popular solidarity. Berlin 2005, p. 14f.
  7. ↑ Call to read at: It all started in Dresden: 65 years of popular solidarity in Germany ( Memento of October 28, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
  8. ↑ Ernst-Günter Lattka: Hurray, we're alive! 60 years of popular solidarity. Berlin 2005, p. 17.
  9. ↑ Astrid Hupka: The story behind our club emblem. In: Volkssolidarität Dresden (Hrsg.): Lebensbilder - Das Magazin der Volkssolidarität Dresden , issue 2/2016. P. 3.
  10. ↑ Ernst-Günter Lattka: Hurray, we're alive! 60 years of popular solidarity. Berlin 2005, p. 63.
  11. ^ A b Beatrix Bouvier : The GDR - a welfare state? Social policy in the Honecker era. Dietz, Bonn, 2002, ISBN 3-8012-4129-7 , p. 241 / p. 240.
  12. ↑ Volkssolidarität Bundesverband e. V .: Articles of Association, decided by the Federal Delegates' Assembly on November 14, 2014 ( online , accessed on October 18, 2015)
  13. ^ New federal executive committee of people's solidarity. Federal Delegate Assembly 2018
  14. ↑ Volkssolidarität Bundesverband e. V .: The social balance sheet of popular solidarity in 2008; published at press conference on June 3, 2009.
  15. ↑ People's solidarity: information and worth knowing 2019 (brochure, PDF)
  16. ↑ People's solidarity: information and worth knowing 2018 (brochure, PDF)
  17. ↑ People's solidarity: information and worth knowing 2017 (brochure, PDF, 763kB)
  18. ↑ Brief information on People's Solidarity 2011 ( Memento from December 1, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
  19. ^ Website of the Free Gymnasium Borsdorf
  20. ^ Social report after years . Website of the SFZ Berlin-Brandenburg e. V., accessed on October 13, 2015.
  21. ↑ The circle of supporters of the alliance. ( Memento from February 2, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) on: Umairteile.de .
  22. ↑ Advice for men against violence. February 5, 2020, accessed April 1, 2020 .
  23. ↑ Violence can be prevented - Berlin Prevention Award 2009. Accessed April 2, 2020 .
  24. ↑ Advice for men against violence. February 5, 2020, accessed April 2, 2020 .