Ciutat Cuidadora

We are vulnerable and interdependent beings. As individuals, we are born extremely frail. We take a year to stand up, two to communicate through language and four to be able to dress ourselves on our own to protect ourselves from the cold. Our vulnerability and dependence explain why we live in a community. We depend on time, work and the affection we receive from others to survices.

When we talk about ‘care’ we are referring to a whole range of tasks that produce goods and services which serve to regenerate people’s daily and inter-generational physical and emotional well-being, and which normally arise in intimate circles and within the framework of households.

We all need to receive ongoing care of different types and in varying intensities throughout our lives, depending on the life stage we find ourselves in, and on our capacity for self-care and for caring for others at each moment of our lives While childhood, old-age and times of sickness require specific, more intensive types of physical care, as people we need affection and emotional care all through our lives, even when we are healthy, independent adults. We need to think about the need for care not as an exceptional situation but rather as a feature inherent to our human condition, where we all have a right, but also the duty, to receive and provide care.