Who are we and how do we work?
supportsupport is a group in Hamburg that supports people in dealing with violence in their environments. We primarily work on violence in relationships. By this we mean violence that has taken place in partnerships or friendships, or even in more or less close complicated relationships. Such social relationships may have arisen in political groups, living environments, neighborhoods, at events, at camps, or in other contexts; they may exist in ongoing or fleeting contacts.
We ourselves have experience with support work in various roles. Many of these processes sought ways of dealing with sexualized violence and relationship violence. As a result of these discussions, we have decided to contribute our experience to the work of other supportive environments.
Our work draws on ideas that have emerged in movements such as transformative justice and collective responsibility, definitional power, agency, and solidarity-based partiality. We are working to recognize how strongly relationships are shaped by power imbalances.
As a structure, we are self-organized. We are not affiliated with any institution, are not a counseling center or social work facility, and do not receive any (state) funding. We operate independently of the police, the judiciary, and psychiatry.
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Why do we do this work?
Solidarity-based support work can have an empowering effect on affected individuals and their communities. However, we have also found that it can be exhausting and cause new harm. Reflection and exchange should help to reduce conflicts, obstacles, and pitfalls in such processes. From our experience at supportsupport, we have learned that sharing and discussing experiences can lead to the development of better ways of dealing with them.
In everyday life and in political contexts, we observe that this work is increasingly being taken on by people who have experienced discrimination, marginalization, and/or violence. We want a society that enables an anti-patriarchal approach to violence and in which these forms of communal care work also receive resources and recognition. We strive to interrupt and transform the repetition of social patterns of oppression in your and our relationships.