Families – we can only achieve them together

Families – we can only achieve them together: this is the title of the Caritas Campaign in 2013. It is about what families do for their own members and for society. But also about families under pressure who need the support of others.

Showing affection, arguing, laughing, balancing out interests, developing talents, knowing you are loved and showing love to yourself - children, youngsters and adults learn all this through relationships with other people. They learn this especially intensively in their own family. And they miss it especially intensively in their own family.

With its campaign, Caritas wants to call attention to the potential every family has and to the fact that families under pressure need to be supported. In this respect, the German Caritas Association does not consider family to be no more than the (small) nuclear family unit. It also considers several generations living together and the different experience realms present within these generations.

The campaign makes it clear that families provide an independent, central and indispensable contribution to the solidarity of our society. Caritas is therefore promoting appreciation for families without, however, idealising family life. This is why Caritas also broaches the issue of the various strains families have to manage and points out the limits of their resilience.

Caritas calls on those responsible in politics and the economy to create general conditions that make it possible for family life and work, care and other care-related activities to be compatible with each other and for burdens to be shared in an equitable manner. Caritas itself invests its resources as an assisting, politically active association and employer to strengthen families.

• German Website of the Campaign