This week the Pew Research Group released research that presents European citizens opinions on Europe. The research, entitled The New Sick Man of Europe: the European Unionfocuses on the opinion citizens across Europe have on the European Union given the recent economic, financial and social upheavals. Much has been made in the media of the findings that only 46% of the research sample felt favourably towards the European Union.This is a drop of 22% since 2007 and can therefore be correlated to how the crisis has been handled by and across the European Union.Perhaps even more shocking only 37% felt that European integration strengthened the economy. Interesting stuff and a real challenge for European leaders to ensure the democratic legitimacy of and support to the European Union.

 But there were some other statistics that were not at the front of the media analysis…60% see the gap between rich and poor as a very big problem, 77% think that the European economic system favours the wealthy and a staggering 85% think the rich – poor gap has increased in the last five years.None of this gives us any hope that we are moving forward positively from the turmoil of the last few years – rather, we are in danger of further fragmentation, further marginalisation and greater gaps in our society. But all is not bleak. Last weekend I visited a church in the UK who were looking for volunteers to help start a debt prevention and counselling programme – just like our members in the Netherlands are doing. I met a friend who is looking to be involved in a local organisation looking at practical ways to reduce fuel poverty in their local community – just as is happening in other parts of Europe. 

I spoke to a new mum who was thinking about offering to visit older people in her community with her young baby to try and make conncetions between the generations in her area. Small individual steps, but all steps in the right direction to reduce gaps. We need structural change and our prophetic diaconia needs to be strong- but we also need these small steps by individuals, by local communities, by our churches- acts of service, because many small steps at the same time make a lot of noise, shake the earth beneth us and hopefully fill in the gaps.

Have a good weekend!

Heather

This week I have been attending the European Commission/Irish Presidency conference on the Social Investment Package. The package has been launched as a series of guidelines for Member States to re-orientate their social spending as an investment rather than a cost and to develop spending on human capital and well- being. The discussions have been interesting but what has been challenging is the emphasis on showing the social return on investment in a quantifiable way. This is something we need to develop further in Eurodiaconia so we can illustrate how ambitious and targeted social spending can result in sustainable outcomes that ensure well- being across the life cycle. Put it another way, we need to show how smart investment in our work leads to long term economic savings for society as a whole.

We cannot dispute this argument but having listened today, to lots of talk about how to measure, collect data and show the economic arguments, I can't help feel we miss the human face of social investment. We need to couple the economic evidence with the real stories, the real experiential change and show how lives are transformed. Then we will be showing the economic and social returns. How do we do this? We need our members to give us more and more examples of how their work changes lives and situations and how funding is used to achieve this. We need to build up our body of evidence to show why social services work beyond economics to really develop each person. We know it is happening so let us tell our stories to everyone else.

Have a good weekend,
Heather