Self-organized care for older people in Eastern Germany:

After the fall of socialism in 1989, People’s Solidarity (PS) was the only former mass organization to survive the post-socialist transformation in East Germany. Its members provided support for older adults through neighbourhood volunteer networks. This chapter examines the organization's continuous efforts to improve living conditions and reduce human suffering in their communities as a form of local humanitarianism – a practice of caring that reacts to local needs and emerges in addition to, or on the margins of, established care systems. Despite the challenges of adapting to a new market economy, PS volunteers upheld their commitment to local care, sustaining humanitarian principles in everyday practices such as home and neighbourhood help. Through the biographical case of one former PS volunteer, the chapter explores how ‘socialist humanitarianism’ was adapted post-1989, with a continued focus on local self-organized care. The chapter concludes by suggesting that similar forms of neighbourhood volunteering across East Central Europe in the twentieth century warrant further comparative studies to understand how ‘universality’ as a humanitarian principle was construed locally and whether the ‘universal’ translated to global.

Recently published in: "Humanitarian mobilization in Central and Eastern Europe. Local, national and international perspectives”

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