Peace Week Barcelona: Final Day

Imagine you live in a place you don’t own and police may come anytime to evict you. You don’t even have the electricity so you can only see your room in the daylight. If you want your shower or toilet to work you have to fix it yourself but the water will probably stay cold anyway. The conditions are so bad that even sleeping in a bed becomes a luxury. During the Peace Action Week in Barcelona we tried to get a better understanding of the situation of people who really cannot afford paying for the bills, who have to live without electricity, light, water. People who have been evicted and left without a home and who still have to pay bank a debt. That is why we decided to live in such poor conditions.

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One important thing we understood is that we don’t need that much to survive. Of course, having a shower in hot water sounds really good but eventually you can manage without it. The problem is that there are people who don’t even have a free access to the water, no matter hot or cold.

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Fortunately there are social movements that help such people. During this Peace Action Week we had a chance to live at Can Masdeu and La PAH where we learnt how we can help. The power of social networks and grassroots initiatives is bigger than we thought. The idea of squatting houses was quite new to many of us and we had an opportunity not just to meet people who live like that but also to join them for a few days.DSC_0207

We have learnt a lot and experienced something unique that enriched us in many ways. We decided to use that knowledge and make projects in our countries. On the last day we were working on those projects in small groups. We realized that even though the situation in each country is different we can still support and learn from each other. The Peace Action Week might be over but we feel that our ‘mission’ has just began. We know that we will succeed!

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