Solidarity and Housework

Photo Credit to http://appliedbusinessanthropology.blogspot.com

My two older sisters, Mila, 63 and Bobbie, 58  signed up with facebook and have 145 and 29 friends respectively (Bobbie just opened account in May 2011). Both joined the family group, "liked" Bruno Mars to support a niece from the opposite pole who joined such and such contest, renewed communications with long lost relatives and are proudly sharing the most recent pictures of their smart grand children. Facebook has become an effective channel for encouraging family relationship and generational identity.

There will, however, be no replacing family life as the first, cheapest, most natural and most effective school in generational solidarity that our world so needs. Family life naturally generates and nurture trust and reciprocity among its members which are what make solidarity work.

A well managed home must facilitate family relationship. The living quarters, the service areas and service performance must promote family get together, conversation and working together.  Every aspect of household service must be performed to allow, foster and not to interrupt family relationship. To trust is to be able to rely on another and it is in serving, in giving one's time, one's helping hand, giving oneself that promotes trust among people.  Family lifestyle and household service that isolate members from each other or take away the opportunity of needing and giving service to each other  also take away the education in solidarity.

As a professional homemaker or private service professional, what is your service vision? 

Loving Cebu and Bohol..

with family and friends in Cebu

Sustainable Living: Professional Approaches to Housework

I apologize for the long absence, the previous months got me so busy as I endeavored to do something outside of my comfort zone - producing a serious paper for an international conference which I will talk about in the coming blogs - and I don't regret it. I find it good to stretch myself outside of my comfort zone to keep on improving my industry, myself and my craft . And this conference proved to be a great experience!

I always held the conviction that housework is crucial to home and society and in my own way make house workers be aware and proud of it and I had been finding ways that it be recognized by society as such.  The recently concluded 3rd Excellence in the Home International Conference series entitled: Sustainable Living Conference organized by the Home Renaissance Foundation was very uplifting and inspiring.
I've participated in many conferences within the industry and heard my colleagues talk about our profession. But this conference was different. The conference gathered experts from varied disciplines - sociologists, biologist, economists, academe, businessmen, lawyers, goverment officials, housework professionals and moms to share their research studies regarding the importance and impact of housework to achieving a sustainable society. It was so inspiring to hear experts from different backgrounds, nationalities and culture talk and share ideas about the work in the home from their expertise point of view and share my very same conviction.
Prof. Bellardinelli from the Univ of Bologna, Prof Piorowski from Univ of Berlin and Prof Mauhri Ahlberg of Helsinki all spoke about the role of home and house work as the most natural, most effective and cheapest seat of education of a person in solidarity, sustainability and responsible economic management - all three big issues of our time. Prof Peggie Smith from Wasgington U spoke about the need to promote the legal recognition of this much neglected profession.  I will be talking about each of this in my next blogs.

Home Renaissance The conference which was held in Grocers Hall, London on March 17-18 had participants coming from the five continents. You may follow Home Renaissance at http://www.homerenaissancefoundation.com or on twitter at  http://twitter.com/#!/HRFLondon

More in my next blogs...