OIKOS - Fostering Cohesion of European society through resilience building

Crisis as chance to create skills and competences to strengthen public welfare, social cohesion and resilience
The financial and economic crisis have had a harsh impact on southern European countries. But while making life harder for a lot of people they have also been a chance to develop skills and competences to overcome the hardship and strengthen resilience – an important ability when tackling future challenges like climate change, peak-oil, future crisis etc. and their influence on European societies. As Albert Einstein has put it: Problems cannot be solved with the same thinking that led to their existence. Thus the crisis has also been an opportunity for the evolution and development of societies towards degrowth and public welfare economy. Skills and competences developed as an answer to economic deprivation will be documented, discussed and shared among European nations for the common welfare. Thus the project aims at collecting successful approaches in resilience building like CSA, local currencies, local support-networks, repair cafes, share economy etc., exchange the knowledge about them (creation, implementation, impact, sustainability), discuss their transferability and make them publicly available in an online database with a connected forum for further exchange and support in their establishment. A secondary impact of the project would be the strengthening of European cohesion – southern European countries have something to contribute and teach the north, instead of only being portrayed and received as receiving credits; thus their self-esteem and feeling of belonging to the “house of Europe” can be fostered as well as the overall feeling of European citizens that they are actively shaping their future together.