Arbeiterwohlfahrt

Arbeiterwohlfahrt (AWO) is a charitable welfare organization in Germany, founded on 13 December 1919 on the initiative of Marie Juchacz. Its federal association, the AWO Bundesverband, represents the overall association's political interests at national and international level, informing, initiating projects and campaigns, and accompanying innovation processes. The AWO states that it has stood for the values of freedom, equality, justice, solidarity and tolerance for over a hundred years, and with its more than hundred-year history counts among the oldest welfare associations in Germany.

Arbeiterwohlfahrt was founded on 13 December 1919 on the initiative of Marie Juchacz, then an SPD Reichstag deputy, social reformer and women's rights advocate. According to the AWO's own history, the founding context was the economic ruin and political instability of the German Reich after the First World War, with mass impoverishment that demanded self-help and practical solidarity from many voluntary helpers. The idea was to form a social-democratic welfare organization from the various organizations of the labour movement; the 'Hauptausschuss der Arbeiterwohlfahrt' was founded on 13.12.1919. The political aim was to replace the stigmatizing poor relief of the imperial regime and to carry the idea of self-help and solidarity into modern welfare care, so that workers would no longer be the 'object' of poor relief. With its more than hundred-year history, the AWO counts among the oldest welfare associations in Germany.

A German welfare association that describes itself as standing for freedom, equality, justice, solidarity and tolerance for over a hundred years, and as representing its overall association's political interests at national and international level.

1. 1AWO Bundesverbandawo.org
2. 2Geschichte - AWOawo.org
3. 3Arbeiterwohlfahrtwikidata.org