[Social background and the importance of organized, voluntary neighborhood support]

For some years we have been trying to promote projects providing for social support and a social network to improve the health and the social situation of persons who lack a supporting network of their own. The following article explains the social background and the social importance of the work done by an office for mediating voluntary neighbourhood support in a city district. The voluntary helpers and the persons who come for aid are compared with matched, representative random samples taken from the same district. The empirical study shows that persons seeking aid are socially underprivileged since they have only few resources, a low income, a social network that fails to support them, and a low sense of self-esteem. The mediating office for neighbourhood help has been successful in so far as its target group of persons in need of aid was actually reached. Neighbourhood help exercises a preventive action by the possible avoidance or alleviation of stress-conditioned diseases.