In my role at Eurodiaconia, I have found that there are certain phrases I repeat on a regular basis. One of those is that “Eurodiaconia is nothing without its members”. We are not an office, or a staff team but rather a network of incredibly skilled and committed organisations and individuals who work every day with social situations that many of us hope we might never encounter.
This week I had the possibility to virtually meet with our Danish members in the Danish Diaconal Council with whom we talked about the impact of COVID-19 around Europe on social service providers and those they serve. I was able to contribute virtually to the 30th-anniversary celebrations of one of our Czech members Sleska Diakonie where they reflected on how far their delivery of social services has come in the last 30 years and the success factors that have led them to have such high quality and empowering services.
But the beauty of our network is that we also stand alongside each other in hard times. Our members in Armenia are among those suffering greatly due to the conflict in the Caucasus. But even in their own suffering, they are working to support Internally Displaced Persons and call for peace and resolution of this ongoing conflict that needs international intervention and mediation. Many of our members have this week faced new restrictions on their work due to new COVID-19 prevention measures in the general population and once again face hard decisions about how to provide essential social services in new ways.
This is just one week – and I know that there are many other positives and negatives faced by more of our members this week. But we keep going. We keep serving, we keep challenging the structural and systemic causes of injustice, exclusion, poverty, and inequalities. We look forward and we keep working together as a network as together we are stronger.
Have a good weekend,
Heather