To alleviate the impacts of COVID-19 policies, many initiatives have been developed by civil society organisations – NGOs, local governments, or citizens. A team of national researchers from the RESISTIRÉ project has collected and highlighted a set of particularly relevant initiatives in 27 European countries and in Iceland, Serbia, the United Kingdom and Turkey. These Better Stories cover eight specific domains: gender-based violence, the labour market, the economy, gender-pay and pension gaps, gender care gaps, decision-making and politics, environmental justice, human and fundamental rights.
This Better Story was collected by Stine Thidemann Faber; Lise Rolandsen Augustine
To mitigate the negative consequences of the corona crisis, the KFUM’s Social Work created a mobile café concept – called urgent social drive – focusing on the socially disadvantaged living in the peripheral areas of Denmark.
An innovative concept
The concept relies on the idea of driving out to local communities to create help and support for 5-7 people at a time by way of 1-2 volunteers at each location. The mobile cafes are open for 1-2 hours at each location and visit the same location 1-2 times a week. The concept is targeting 180 smaller local communities in peripheral areas. The core of the idea is to bring help, advice, and support to the socially disadvantaged aged 18-75 who have limited or no network, including people with mental disorders, abuse, in loneliness, vulnerable families, economically disadvantaged, etc.
An unexpected outcome
The project’s aim was initially to involve a total of 1,260 socially vulnerable people per week, spread over 15 peripheral areas with 12 mobile cafes sessions in each location over a 3-month period. The concept proved to be a huge success. Project ‘Urgent Social Drive Out’ has met one and a half times more citizens in the mobile cafes than expected.
Photo frpm Freepik