Oberberg – The Free Welfare Association of North Rhine-Westphalia organized a rally on the Oberkassel Rheinwiesen today – Oberberger was also there – the debt advice center addresses the members of the state parliament.
Whether in day-care centers and open all-day care, care facilities and offers for people with disabilities, the integration of refugees, debt counseling or youth support: the social infrastructure in North Rhine-Westphalia is on the brink – the Free Welfare Agency of North Rhine-Westphalia is convinced of this. At a large demonstration in Düsseldorf today, the welfare associations sent a clear signal against the planned cuts by the black-green state government. It started – in keeping with the motto – at 12:05 p.m. on the Rhine meadows on the left bank of the Rhine.
As the Working Group of the Free Welfare Association of Oberbergischer Kreis announced yesterday, the draft budget would provide for cuts amounting to 83 million euros. “We don’t want to accept that!” says the statement from the working group, which includes the AWO, Caritas, Paritätische, Diakonie and the DRK. If the cuts are implemented, they will have visible and noticeable consequences for many people in the country. “The social infrastructure is being weakened and support offers for numerous groups are being scaled back,” said the working group.
The providers, employees and volunteers in the social sector would face even greater burdens. “This draft budget does not give the impression that the state government wants to end the lack of management in welfare and social work,” explains Hartmut Krabs-Höhler, chairman of the Free Welfare Association of North Rhine-Westphalia, in a statement. “With this budget, the status quo cannot even be maintained in many areas. Numerous providers are already fighting for survival and have to limit advice and support services.”
An example from Oberberg is provided by Kristina Schüttler, who wrote to the Oberberg state parliament members Bodo Löttgen, Christian Berger and Marc Zimmermann on Monday. Schüttler heads the debtor and insolvency advice center of the Diakonie of the Evangelical Church District An der Agger and is also deputy chairwoman of the debt advice association of the Diakonie Rhineland-Westphalia-Lippe. She hopes that MPs will reconsider the planned cuts.
Although the debt advice centers are not on the brink of extinction, the state government’s draft budget envisages a complete abolition of funds for specialist advice from debt and insolvency advice centers from January 1st next year. “This saving would only amount to around 200,000 euros for the entire budget,” says Schüttler. If specialist advice were to cease, the approximately 200 recognized non-profit advice centers in North Rhine-Westphalia would each have to independently obtain the necessary information and organize further training. “This can only be achieved at the expense of valuable resources that would be missing for case work on site,” says Schüttler.
With the campaign “NRW stay social!”, the Free Welfare Agency of North Rhine-Westphalia is calling on politicians to work towards a comprehensive improvement in the situation of social providers. The working group of the Oberbergischer Kreis Free Welfare Association is also calling for greater support for social institutions. According to WDR information, more than 30,000 people came together in Düsseldorf today to set an example together. AWO, Caritas, Paritätische, Diakonie and DRK from Oberbergisch assumed in advance that they would take part in the demo with several hundred employees and parents.
