“I feel that I cannot win. I feel I have no agency. My trauma is belittled. Mental health professionals have labelled me as manipulative, demonstrative, childlike, badly behaved, more difficult than others,  and less deserving of care.” …

The 22 August is the UN's International Day Commemorating the Victims of Acts of Violence based on Religion or Belief. As someone who is a victim of violence on the basis of my faith, I wanted to share what happened to me and my family, how that trauma is still real today many years on, and how it has affected my mental health and day-to-day life.

I am working to create change at Platfform, to ensure that there is an equal playing field for all, and to help make us an organisation that reflects a wider range of backgrounds and experiences.

We’ve all been in the same storm but on different boats. We've shared a collective trauma but we have experienced it individually. So, no surprise then that there is not a one-size-fits-all formula for how to support each other in this almost post, but still lingering pandemic.

This report brings together what was learned during lockdown, what it means for the health of our current system, and how these experiences may fuel future change.

It’s obvious that well supported people, where barriers to opportunity are removed, will go on to live more fulfilling and productive lives.  Kindness is about removing those barriers.

As some of us emerge from our four walls and others from the relentless work on the coalface we want to dive in to how this is all feeling and what sense we can make of it.

If a kindness lens helps us reflect more compassionately on our own motives for being and doing then that can bring enlightenment, which can, in turn, motivate change, it has for me.