In the almost seventh week of my confinement and ever since I recently discovered that, for reasons beyond my control, I have to work, I have witnessed, in my exhausted and even, at times, incredulous state, the distress caused by COVID-19, commonly called the coronavirus.   

Sometimes I want to wake up from this nightmare but I can’t. I want to believe that it is a novel or a science fiction film, but it’s not, it’s real, and I find myself a spectator of the most sordid and unpleasant aspects of the challenge that is making us lose everything that we had achieved, everything we had dreamed of or wanted to attain. And I ask myself, what now?  

I find it hard to believe that this so-called “crowned bug” will lead us to what the Anglo-Saxon world calls appeasement (apaciguamiento), to being spectators to what is happening, without doing anything, or almost nothing, and that this will lead us to an idealism that makes reality and disappointment collide. A reality we are seeing and/or each of us is undergoing against our own backdrops and the disappointment of waiting for things to change and being permanently on hold. 

A few months ago I had the privilege of attending an activity organised by EUROsociAL+ in Antigua, Guatemala, at which it was possible to witness how different social actors from different social, political and cultural spheres talked about, compared and demonstrated how in different countries and different contexts inequality, mistrust, lack of transparency and resources and disparities in wealth and even corruption have tarnished democracies, generating a lack of confidence in institutions, and how they, at the same time, shared and sought synergies to continue fighting for a common project.   

New actors, new spaces have always set the guidelines of the programme and, in general, of the Foundation, and it is these very guidelines and spaces that form the fabric that feeds cooperation, solidarity and mutual aid, where stability and moderation have produced and will continue to produce social transformations perhaps never imagined, where moderation and plausibility are based on everyday reality, achieved by taking important small steps and always with a realism that describes the social reality of where we live, weaving trust based on equal opportunities, a sense of belonging and solidarity. We are the weavers of the trust that awaits us, that invites us to continue working for our future among peers and for that of others.  

New challenges, new purposes, new horizons, new goals await us.   This is what it’s all about, not dreaming, not idealising, but weaving the future together, accompanying strategic demands, continuing to add and support networks and work plans, where cooperation, in this case, is a vital and essential element, a resource, that leads us to come together and share the same loom, now more than ever. 

Shedy Plaza, Support Technician EUROsociAL+ Programme Office  

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