NEWS - ANNOUNCEMENTS
It was April 16th when we started. We didn’t call it an “anniversary” back then. We used to say “let’s hold on. We used to say “here we are.”
Ten years later, we are not going to write a celebratory piece. We won’t talk about successes, numbers, or a “growth trajectory.”
For us, this day is, first and foremost, about tenderness. It is the memory of all those people who passed through our lives, and we through theirs. People who were neither “beneficiaries” nor “cases,” but individuals with a name, a history, resilience, and dignity. Who came to us not to be saved, but to have a place to stand without shame. We carry them with us.
And within this tenderness, we think of those who didn’t make it. Whose breath ran out before anything could change. Whom the system caught up with first. We will not forget them. They are here, with us, between the lines.
But we don’t forget ourselves either. Because this journey came, and still comes, with a cost. People joined us. Some left. Some stayed. And we ourselves are counting losses. Not just of people, but of pieces of ourselves. Psychological toll, exhaustion, moments when we felt ourselves breaking. We don’t say it often. It doesn’t fit the image of a “resilient organization”. But it is the truth. And today, on this day, we speak it. Because solidarity doesn’t mean you don’t hurt. It means continuing even though you hurt, and not being ashamed of it.
And alongside tenderness, there is anger. For a society that is becoming increasingly harsh, more privatized, more inhumane. Dehumanization is no longer a scream; it is a whisper, a habit, normality. We look around us and see people becoming an obstacle, a burden, a number. And we will not get used to this. This makes us angry.
We choose to be here. Not as charity, but as a political stance. As a reminder that solidarity is a collective need, not alms. As proof that dignity is not a luxury, but something to be claimed.
April 16th. It’s not a birthday. It is tenderness for those we met, remembrance for those who left, and anger towards the state and authority.
