Share your experiences of giving and receiving care – we are collecting stories of care here! We hope to get to a shared view of what people are doing to cope when official systems fail.
What is care? Who gives it?
“The state is the main care provider”, say many Europeans. And sure, the welfare state is a major safety net in their societies. “Business is the main care provider”, reply many Americans. They have a point too: their insurance companies, hospitals and clinic – most of these are businesses.
And yet, that’s not the whole story. Care models are failing: per capita health care expenditure grows faster than GDP. We need to spend an ever-greater part of our resources just to stay well. Under pressure to get care, the edges of society (the young, the nomads and migrants, the precariat) respond by getting creative. There are many ongoing experiments, large and very small.
- A hackerspace in England provides a safe space and a sense of identity to the members, many of whom are unemployed, or disabled, or homeless.
- Hundreds of enterprising Greeks spawn a whole network of "shadow" clinics.
- Three expat adult couples in Belgium decide to live under the same roof and be each other's support network.
Along this journey, they (and we all) face deep questions about what care really is. Is it services? Is it human attention and warmth? Is it trying to fix what’s wrong with people in need of care? Is it accepting everybody for what they are, with their strengths and weaknesses?
On October 19-21 at openvillage, we bring these experiences and initiatives together into a demo of a new health and social care system.
Do you have a story of care? Please, share it with us.
If you do not have anything to share, but are interested, please help others reflect on their own journeys by commenting on the experiences shared by others.
Good for you: When you post a story you get a ticket to the MEET THE OPENCARERS track of OpenVillage Festival 2017. You also become eligible for an OpenCare Fellowship.
How to participate: Click on the “Add my story” button below and write a little about yourself and your own experiences around giving and receiving care. Just let it flow freely, don’t worry about getting it “right” in any way - this is a no judgment space. Alternatively, choose a story from the ones below and leave a thoughtful comment.
Need help getting started? Some questions others have been answering as a starting point for their reflections.
- How are people on the move caring and being cared for?
- Do you know examples where people are hacking or making their own solutions to meet care needs for themselves or others?
- Have you heard about initiatives that help members of communities to boost one another's mental and spiritual resilience?