About our idea
Volkshilfe Community Work
We would like to contribute to a better living together in our beautiful city Vienna.
Do you have an idea of how to give a new impetus to your neighborhood? A vision which has been occupying your mind for some time and for which you have not had time and resources to materialize yet?
We help you!
As a Community Leader you may resort to the know-how of the Volkshilfe, as well as material support. In doing so, regardless of your faith, the colour of your skin or your sexual orientation – your ideas for a solidarity-based, peaceful and inclusive coexistence is what matters!
How did the idea materialize
We started 2022 in Favoriten, the 10th district of Vienna. Favoriten has always been a place that exhibits remarkable social, ethnic, ideological and cultural diversity. The 10th district is, due to its size and importance, also one of the places where social conflicts sometimes become tangible and reach a broad media audience. This hides the qualities, openness and engagement of many of its residents occasionally. Favoriten is the ideal starting point for the development of a new, low threshold and inclusive approach to community work. We, in the meantime, also participate in the local agenda of further districts, like Penzing and Neubau, through our expertise. Furthermore, with the Community-Tandems, we bring together newly immigrated third country nationals with already firmly rooted ones all over Vienna.
Mission
The challenges for a successful coexistence are similar throughout the city. Our function is to promote this and to support and illustrate the commitment of people regardless of their social, economic or linguistic background. The preferred place for implementing our initiatives is a public space. This no longer means only the streets and squares of the city; but digital places, in which we move around more and more in everyday’s life, too. With our own formats and activities, we create possibilities for encounters and exchanges too, so that the diversity of the city and its people are visible beyond its boundary.
Vision
With our work we would like to gradually establish a network of committed people, both in different districts and its neighborhood, in the whole city. Our initiatives furthermore form a continuous basis that, in the long term, promotes the creation of an urban, positive and diverse identity for the urban population. By doing so, we create spaces of exchange for different population groups, promote its cooperation and, above all, put connecting before separating.
Facts
We support people who voluntarily promote peaceful, solidarity-based and inclusive coexistence in Vienna. We support you both, organizationally and financially, in implementing your ideas.
Through both, low-threshold and multilingual support in the development and implementation of initiatives, we ensure that people, regardless of their social, linguistic or economic background, have the opportunity to get involved within the framework of the Volkshilfe Community Work.
The initiatives which are supported from us provide interventions in a wide variety of areas. Regardless of whether the motivation is artistic, social, educational or everyday culture, together it contributes to promoting a modern and inclusive urban identity.
Our initiatives are primarily implemented in public space. In the city’s streets and squares, as well as in digital spaces, wherever we move around in everyday’s life. The cornerstone of our work is to be present where people meet.
The Volkshilfe Community Work Team
Amar Rajković
Miriam Mayrhofer
Ali Gedik
Thomas Reithmayer
Mari Steindl
