Definition
A shared responsibility that transforms compassion into concrete support, collective organization and the defence of common rights.
Solidarity goes beyond the one-off gesture: it also seeks to change the conditions that make the aid necessary. It can be expressed in a family, association, movement or institution.
To be retained
- Moving from feeling to action
- Working with the persons concerned
- Sustainable sharing of responsibilities
- Connecting immediate aid and structural causes
Origin of the term and context
The word s'developed from the Latin legal vocabulary solidum, which involved a common responsibility for debt, before becoming a social and political ideal.
Why does it matter?
Support networks improve the capacity of communities to cope with crises, but sustainable solidarity requires a clear division of responsibilities and listening to those affected.
- Moving from feeling to action
- Working with the persons concerned
- Sustainable sharing of responsibilities
- Connecting immediate aid and structural causes
How can it be explored or practised?
- Regularly support local action
- Ask the beneficiaries what is useful
- Sharing a competency rather than imposing a solution
- Intervening when an individual is unjustly isolated
Misconceptions and points of caution
- Helping others in place can dispossess them.
- Selective solidarity can exclude.
- Activism exhaustion also requires care.
Perspectives from different traditions
- Ubuntu: Identity is built in the relationship.
- Social Christianitys: common good and option for the most vulnerable.
- Humanism: Mutual responsibility without a compulsory religious foundation.
To go further
- Basic forms of solidarity — sociological readings
- Ubuntu — Mogobe Ramose