Social Solidarity Economy

The market pillar usually focuses on private care providers and the world of labor, the so-called care professions. READ MORE...

In the state pillar, we find all those policies that concern state institutions and the so-called welfare state. The fields of social security, health, employment, and education are traditional areas in which policies linked to care are organized. READ MORE...

The term community is used to describe a set of different and often conflicting actors involved in the organization of care. READ MORE...

The Greek word for care refers to a special emotional relationship, like the one that parents develop with their children. And not without reason, since the family is the most basic pillar of care in most countries of the world. READ MORE...

Care (and its lack thereof) is intrinsic in all human relations and scales of everyday life: it can refer to the material and emotional care of our closest ones, but also to the implicit care (e.g., when we boycott Manolada strawberries due to the appalling working conditions), or even to more collective actions that aim to sustain and “take care of” our collective infrastructure, common goods, and endangered democratic institutions.  READ MORE...

The Thessaloniki Social Atlas, a new digital project with the signature of the Department of Urban and Regional Planning of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and the support of the Heinrich Böll Foundation, was launched with a major public event. This platform, which resembles an open online “encyclopedia” for the urban space and anthropogeography of Thessaloniki, offers - perhaps for the first time - an organized, interdisciplinary and fully documented material, with emphasis on the visual representation of data, addressed to the scientific community, the general public, but also to decision makers and policy makers at the same time.

Do the municipalities belong to the citizens? Is this first tier of government really close to the citizens? Are there relationships of trust and cooperation between municipalities and citizens? These questions were addressed in the workshop organized in Ioannina on 1 April 2024 by the project “Ioannina is planning”, in cooperation with the participatory process platform Localwatch and with the support of the Heinrich Böll Foundation.

Yannis Charchantis conveys his experience from participating in the event “The Contribution of the Social Solidarity Economy to the creative economy,” which took place on Monday, April 22, 2024, at the Municipal Library of Komotini, as part of the National Youth Capital 2024 initiative. The event was organized by the Municipality of Komotini’s Youth and Volunteering Center “exagono”, the Department of Social Policy of Democritus University of Thrace, and the Municipality of Komotini, with the support of the Heinrich Böll Foundation – Thessaloniki Office.

How does technology shape people’s everyday lives? Does it contribute (if at all) to social development? Does it promote democracy? Does it break down social and cultural stereotypes, or does it conform to them? These and many more questions are brought to light in the publication “In front of the technological mirror – Analyzing the social reflections of technology”. The book, a project by the Sociality team in collaboration with Open Lab Athens and published by the Heinrich Böll Foundation – Thessaloniki Office, was presented on November 5, 2024, at the packed “Komprai” bookstore in Athens.

The Social Solidarity Economy (SSE) initiatives, which came as a response to the persistent crisis by people with a cooperative spirit, are not going through an easy path. On 13 December 2024, more than 25 people from all over the country who are active in SSE initiatives made an appointment for a participatory workshop to reflect on their past, present and future.