Starting signal for effective services to strengthen resilience in cases of loneliness

Over 30 Offenbach stakeholders took part in the 1st Honjok Barcamp at the beginning of March and exchanged views on a variety of questions and facets relating to the topic of loneliness. The event was intended as the starting signal for effective networking within Offenbach in order to put the often taboo topic on the public agenda for the first time and to talk about services for people at risk of loneliness. The first barcamp of its kind was hosted by the Honjok-Offenbach team, an EU-funded research project in which the city of Offenbach, its municipal job center MainArbeit and KIZ Sinnova have been working since September 2024 to find new ways to better deal with loneliness. MainArbeit is involved in this area because people who are unemployed often suffer from loneliness. Lonely people find it difficult to find a new job.

"The insights, ideas and impulses from the intensive joint work of the many participants at the BarCamp far exceeded our expectations," said Oliver Werner (MainArbeit), one of the two project managers from Honjok-Offenbach. He went on to emphasize how important the exchange within Offenbach was.

Petra Bünz, KIZ Managing Director and host of the barcamp, was also delighted with the large number of participants and the high quality of the joint work. "It's great how many great offers there already are in Offenbach. Now we need to make them visible together," she said.

Alexander Geiling, pedagogical director of Honjok-Offenbach, was responsible for the technical management of the barcamp. He began by presenting the aims and content of Honjok-Offenbach:

Geiling explained the three focal points that the team will be working on until fall 2027:

• Creation of Honjok oases - urban places for communal encounters
• Academy - development of offers for a healthy, resilient life
• Network - cooperation with municipal institutions and many other stakeholders for good networking in the city

After an initial joint brainstorming session with all participants, the team clustered the topics and issues into three large topic blocks: 1. services and target groups, 2. loneliness and its consequences and 3. networks. A group room was assigned to each of these topic blocks and the participants worked on the respective topics room by room over the next few hours.

At the end of the barcamp, the main contributions from each room were presented to the entire group in plenary. "We will make the results we have produced today available to all participants," announced Alexander Geiling.

Head of Social Affairs Martin Wilhelm is delighted with the successful kick-off event: "These valuable insights can now be used for further development work. It is important that those affected benefit in the end."

There was also a lot of positive feedback from the Offenbach stakeholders - as well as the question of a next Barcamp. A follow-up event is to take place in September this year. The exact date will be announced soon.