« It's reassuring to know that I have friends in the North, South, East and West, and that there are so many of us that share this desire to help and become actively involved with the Movement's work. […]. The Forum gave us a chance to get some perspective and to think carefully about the work we do each day.. […] I'm going back to my community buoyed by this positive energy!" »
I would like to thank the organisers of the Forum. It's reassuring to know that I have friends in the North, South, East and West, and that there are so many of us that share this desire to help and become actively involved with the Movement's work.
The Forum helped to strengthen my beliefs and will be a useful experience for me going forward. I'm going back to my community buoyed by this positive energy!" It’s great to be able to meet people face to face, to create a bond, to share our questions and note that we have the same issues as well as to know how people have succeeded (or not) in overcoming the challenges they face.
The Forum gave us a chance to get some perspective and to think carefully about the work we do each day.It will help us to see what is positive in our daily work and what we do less well.It’s important to take the time to come together for such debates. There were 300 of us here at the Forum but if all of us spread the message to 10 other people then that’s 3,000 people, and if they then spread the message to another 10 then we’ll have mobilised 30,000 people!It would be like a snowball effect. For me I’m now quite positive about the future and we need to be optimistic because we’re living in a difficult world and we’re facing complex challenges.
The rise of poverty, which we see on a daily basis, can sometimes weigh you down. Meeting people like this makes us stronger. We’ve had time to share experiences and listen to one another, it’s very important for us to take time for this in our professional lives.
I really enjoyed the conference with Susan George from ATTAC because I’ve been an activist for them for a long time now. What I liked was her commitment, and the commitment of the other speakers (Jean Ziegler, Richard Mokolo, Roberto Savio), to the struggles they’ve been leading for so many years. Some of the speakers were over 80 years old but they continue to fight the fight. That was a lesson for me. And they haven’t lost their sense of humour either! We need people that embody our struggles, Abbé Pierre is no longer with us physically but his spirit continues to embody our struggles. I need people to provide me with extra brainpower, I don’t need someone to tell me how to think but rather people that contribute other ideas.
What was very powerful was the informal discussions that went on all throughout the day, it’s hard to find the time to come here for a few days but you can’t have such discussions unless you’re here in person. The last 4 days have been very intense and we’ve all been in it together.
One thing is for sure: I’ll be at the next Forum!
Geneva, September 2018
