Dare to Care - Wege in die gerechte Sorgearbeit

<< Background >>Our common motivation for this project was the necessity to raise awareness of the shortcomings in the care sector and to strengthen strategies towards a gender-equitable economy. Both aspects do not stop at national borders and require both international and interdisciplinary approaches in order to be recognised and dealt with in their complexity. Care work takes place in a globalised labour market. Within Europe, people are migrating primarily from Eastern Europe to Western Europe. Germany and Austria benefit greatly from this. They have a care gain, whereas countries such as Romania, Poland and Slovakia suffer a care drain.At the start of the project, there was a lack of up-to-date, serial podcasts on the topics of care work, the economy and issues of justice in German-speaking countries. Our project idea therefore aimed to start an in-depth, multi-perspective debate on these topics in blog and podcast contributions. During the project period, 10 podcast episodes of between 30 and 90 minutes were produced and published, and 5 blog posts were researched and written. All project results were incorporated into the final event in January 2025.<< Objectives >>The project highlighted the current deficiencies in (un)paid care work and discussed steps for a transformation towards a sustainable economy. The project created accessible and inclusive educational programmes that focused on raising awareness about care work, gender inequality and the economy.Objective 1: A long-term partnership is established between the two organisations Konzeptwerk Neue Ökonomie and PeriskopObjective 2: Education on the topic of gender equality in the economy, particularly in care work, is realisedGoal 3: Groups of people with barriers are strengthened and empoweredGoal 4: Civic engagement and political action is encouraged<< Implementation >>Four activities were carried out: (1) Project management including regular meetings of the cooperation partners, which enabled an intensive exchange and joint detailed planning of the project.(2) The podcast on care justice and the economy with 10 episodes between 30 and 90 minutes long with an audio signature including a jingle, as well as simultaneous interpreting and multilingual elements for four of the ten episodes was developed and published.(3) In the third activity, five blog posts on various aspects of care work and care justice were created and published with in-depth research. (4) At the end of the project, a public panel discussion was held in which 87 people took part. The discussion was additionally recorded as a live podcast.<< Results >>The cooperation partners have developed a sustainable cooperation and have learnt various skills for project management and the creation and dissemination of educational content.Care workers feel empowered and better connected and transnational networks of care workers feel strengthened. Young adults are informed about the connections between the economy, gender equality and care work. They reflect on the role of Germany and Austria in relation to care work in the EU and want to work towards a fair economy for all.