Care Revolution network meeting at the Bessunger Forst youth centre. Some impressions

The Care Revolution network held its biannual network meeting on the weekend of 7 to 9 November. The network meetings are open to all members of the network, and guests are also very welcome. After the positive experiences of the anniversary event in Leipzig and the spring meeting in Frankfurt/Main, we wanted to meet in person again this time, especially as we also had a lot of internal matters to discuss, which suggested a closed meeting.

The Bessunger Forst youth centre on the outskirts of Darmstadt provided a suitable setting for this purpose. There wasn't a great deal of comfort, but there was excellent vegetarian and vegan catering and an incredibly friendly team, with whom everything necessary could be clarified on site without any red tape. The Jugendhof is located in the middle of the forest and at the same time 20 minutes by bus from the main railway station, making it ideal for concentrated work by people coming together from all over Germany.

Apart from the foxes and squirrels, the surroundings were not very distracting and the delicious full catering was helpful because we had really packed our programme. After a relaxed start, a round of introductions and reports on what was happening in the locations, groups and organisations represented, things really got going on Saturday. In alternating one-to-one discussions, we explored the questions of what makes us angry, what we want to change and what gives us strength. Among other things, the answers showed once again how closely interwoven our personal day-to-day care and our care commitment are. In the group, we shared our perceptions of how we as the Care Revolution network are positioned in the face of these challenges. There were many different perceptions, ranging from "our presence as a network has improved and become more visible" to "our ability to intervene on the ground is too limited".

We then discussed proposals for becoming active together as a network.

The first idea was to clearly formulate and work out which framework conditions are required for successful care relationships: democratically socialised care facilities, securing a dignified life independent of employment with sovereignty over one's own lifestyle for all, self-organised collective care solutions. According to the proposal, we should train ourselves internally and as multipliers, and then use this concept as a basis and criterion for actions and interventions.

The second suggestion: It should be emphasised time and again that the well-paid work of the "service providers" is based on others taking on the burden of care. The importance of this work, also as a service, should be emphasised and thus also provide an argument for the redistribution of burdens and resources.

Finally, it was suggested that a major feminist and/or care strike could be expected in 2027 and that the best way to help prepare for this would be to start with actions in as many Care Revolution groups as possible as early as 2026. These were then spun out in the evening with great enthusiasm and energy. We realised: We are missing something here, we want to be visible on the streets and in the squares at the same time. One of the ideas we immediately agreed on was to revitalise the care-political redesign of statues and monuments from the early days of the network. Here is an example from Frankfurt/Main:

The rest of the day was used to discuss the open ends of our internal organisation as a network. It was about membership in the network and, above all, about revising our founding resolution from 2014. After all, the resolution - and the network - was created before the first collective agreement to relieve nursing staff in hospitals, before corona, before the attacks on Ukraine and the Gaza Strip, before a large youth movement against the climate catastrophe, before a shattering shift to the right, before Tradwives on the one hand and ni una menos on the other, before ... We came a long way with it, but not quite to the finish line. We will be finalising the text in the coming weeks.

We then used the Sunday until the end with joint cleaning and lunch to move forward with the three proposals for joint activities. Encouragement, critical comments and pragmatic suggestions, all as tangible as possible, were shared in the group and passed on to the working groups.

Conclusion: Although we unfortunately had a number of cancellations at short notice this time due to illness, caring responsibilities and parallel events, the initial feedback from the participants was that the meeting really created a spirit of optimism. Now it's time to continue working on the content of the proposals, in the various groups and their projects, and above all: out on the streets in spring!

A contribution by Matthias Neumann