Poverty Week 2024 Bocholt
Professor Gerhard Trabert, MD, is a friend of clear and unambiguous words. "In Germany, those who have less money die earlier", says the physician from Mainz when he recognised a clear link between social disadvantage and health years ago. Since then, Trabert has wanted to break this ominous spiral.
© Christof Mattes
This will also be the case in Bocholt from 19 February to 23 February 2024. Gerhard Trabert will be the patron of the fourth "Week of Poverty", which is being organised in cooperation with the SKM, Caritas, the L.i.A. association, the DRK, Tür an Tür e.V., Engagement für Menschen und deren Rechte e.V. and the family education centre, and will focus on exercise and nutrition for the first time directly in the city districts. Information and activities will be offered there - very close to the target group.
The programme will be opened by the patron himself on Monday, 19 February at 7 p.m. in the FaBi am Ostwall. "Poverty makes you ill - illness makes you poor" is the theme of his lecture. Professor Trabert will talk about his daily work, explain the structural shortcomings in the German social and healthcare system and show how things could be better.
The doctor of general and emergency medicine and professor of social medicine and psychiatry knows exactly what he is talking about. Among other things, he is a book author and chairman of the Poverty and Health Association in Germany. The Mainz-based doctor also regularly travels with a mobile consultation room to people who are unable to visit a doctor's surgery themselves. For all others with no or insufficient health insurance, he runs the "medical outpatient clinic without borders", a polyclinic with associated social counselling in the centre of Mainz.
Gerhard Trabert made national headlines in 2022 when he was a non-party candidate for the Left Party in the election of the German Federal President and used this popularity to draw attention to his favourite issue. This even earned him the recognition of the later election winner and current German head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier.
But how can we build a more inclusive, healthier society? Firstly, by providing more and better information. The organisers of the Week of Poverty in Bocholt have therefore invited an ecotrophologist, among others, to give valuable tips on how to eat healthily with inexpensive food at the Quartierstreff Südwest on 20 February from 10 am. On the same day, the neighbourhood office on Münsterstraße will host so-called "puzzle rooms" on the topics of exercise (from 11:30 a.m.) and stress management (from 2 p.m.).
The programme continues on Wednesday, 21 February, with a shopping rally through local shops and on Thursday, 22 February, with an exercise programme at the Sportbox in the Friedhofsviertel and a joint cooking session in Südwest (both from 10 a.m.). How to eat smart and healthy will be revealed on Friday from 10 a.m. at the neighbourhood meeting place Mittendrin. There will also be a cookery challenge for families, with meals costing no more than five euros per person.
The complete programme and further information is available from the cooperation partners SKM, Caritas, L.I.A., DRK, Tür an Tür e.V., Engagement für Menschen und deren Rechte e.V. and the family education centre or online at https://www.facebook.com/Woche.der.Armut.Bocholt/
