A few reflections on the days after the referendum

Like many of you I was shocked with the result of the referendum on Friday. In fact I was so unhappy that I could find in myself nothing but an angry voice. Truth be told I was never as angry in my entire life as when I heard of the Prime Minister’s resignation. Then, a day later, after I vented some of my frustration on social media, I realised one thing: how difficult it is to be kind when we’re angry. How difficult… it is.. to be kind when we’re angry. I think it is quite a powerful realisation. One that probably would help us all in dealing with and processing changes that we might not want go through.

On the Saturday and Sunday I was fortunate to be with family and friends celebrating the christenings of two wonderful little girls and on the Saturday when we were driving south with my family, I was thinking about the people who for the last forty or more years worked for European cooperation and strongly believed in its core values and purpose in the world. I felt the tragedy that they were going through, I saw the debris of their collapsed world and I heard the question that they were perhaps asking themselves: Was it all in vein? And my answer to them was: Don’t even think for one minute that it was in vein. It would be much greater a personal tragedy if for forty years you were working against your core values. That, to me, would be a tragedy.

So here came another realisation to me that actually it doesn’t matter if things fail in the end, but what matters is that you still want to commit and create. As Elizabeth Gilbert once said: Your ego is wounded but your soul is fine, your soul just says: Do you want to do it again? Do you still want to work for those values? That’s the key question.

Flames of support

Last week I was fervently campaigning for lighting a candle in support of asylum seekers and refugees. The idea was warmly embraced by a number of friends and acquaintances and so on Sunday evening, at 9pm, in front of our houses, we lit up the dark and prayed for the refugees’ peaceful journeys to safety and remembered those who have perished at sea. We looked back in our ancestries and saw how each and every family had members who sought refuge and those who sheltered others.

When we gathered I thus realised that we share much more than we think. There is nothing more reassuring than seeing people who are close to you link together in this most crucial of ways. That what it means to be a human being for you means to be a human being for them. That to be respectful and mindful of others means to be a humanitarian. That to be a community means to be a humanitarian community. Nothing else builds trust as much as this.

Activism is not my strength. I am only learning to speak my mind firmly. Last week taught me one thing: that it’s only when you stop sitting on the fence and position yourself that you can seek practical solutions to problems. It’s only then that your mind starts to generate ideas that are worth implementing.

I know that last Sunday at 9pm we created a tiny little piece of history. History for our few families that decided to light a candle. History for our little toddlers who could not contain the joy of lighting candles in the darkness, who could not stop jumping up and down and laughing loudly and being totally in awe of the light and warmth. This event ignited not only the flame of the candle but also the flames of joy in these children. I am pleased and contented for myself and my friends that we’ve started creating the basis of stories to tell our children later in life. Stories of practised compassion, sympathy and connectedness. Thank you for your support Lovely People.

“You have not lived today until you have done something for someone who can never repay you.” John Bunyan

PhotoFundraising – so that we don’t remain so helpless

Over 70 years ago a very kind and progressive nation opened its borders to my grandfather who was fleeing from war-ravaged Poland. It was there, in Zurich, Switzerland, far from his native country that he was educated into a skilled medical doctor. If he had been ignored back then, I would most likely never have been born and neither would all the children of the people that he healed in his lifetime.

When we look at the humanitarian crises and the different positions that people take on them, my husband always concludes that “It all comes down to one basic question: how much do we value human life?”

And I think he’s right. How much do we value human life?

I’ve been listening and watching the news over the last few days and been feeling totally helpless over it. There is a strong urge in me to help so much so that I couldn’t sleep very well for the last few nights. I was thinking what I could do for the people in danger, what I could offer. My heart runs towards them. I’d like to be there on the Mediterranean Sea helping to rescue them from the boats or in Munich greeting the refugees and finding them accommodation, but I have a little child that my husband and I look after and at the moment he is far too small to be left without his mama.

It occurred to me yesterday that all I can do is to do fundraising. Using the skills that I have.

In September I will be fundraising for Doctors Without Borders / Medecins Sans Frontieres (just because they are so effective in managing help) by swapping my photographic skills for funds for the charity. The idea is simple: if I take photographs for you this month, I’d like you to donate as much as you think the photographs are worth to Doctors Without Borders via my Just Giving page.

If you would like some photographs taken of you, your loved-ones or your business or products, contact me through Facebook or my Contact pages to arrange a time and date. I am based in Derby, UK.

Let’s save lives together!

Under the clouds we are all small people.

(If you are from Derby, UK, please could you share this post with your friends. Thank you so so much!)

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