On March 8, to celebrate Women’s Day, we wanted to invite our refugee women from the REACT program to our home in YMCA. Our intention was to really make them feel at home. And also, share with them the idea that women are capable of doing many things on their own. We had Sirin among the guests, a Syrian woman mother of two children, who for the occasion prepared a letter that moved us all. She spoke out loud of the circumstance of being a single mother in a country with a different culture. From the difficulty of raising children away from family and friends. By telling her experience, other women were encouraged to take the microphone and talked about their lives, their problems and their concerns. Being all Arabic speakers the conversation was fluid and spontaneous. To finish the act, they were asked to draw something that makes them smile on a bag with colorful markers.  The bag was given to them as a gift, together with a plant, which would bloom in the following days. Through the plant we wanted to send the message that in order to be able to be active and happy we have to take care of our interior and love ourselves.

It was a very special celebration, where there was space for thinking but also for laughter, singing and dancing.