Dear EFTA colleagues and friends,
I am writing this at a time of great hope and despair, the hope for the future is that one 16-year-old Swedish schoolgirl can inspire over a million and a half schoolchildren in 100 countries to strike for the climate of the earth on Fridays for Future. The majority of the children striking, and marching do not have the possibility to vote. In a previous newsletter our past president Professor Maria Borcsa called for systemic and family therapists to use their voting power to elect politicians who espoused the values of inclusivity, tolerance and diversity. I am echoing that call and adding use your voting power in the upcoming European elections to do what our young people are asking of us, save the climate.
The despair is that as I am writing this news of the latest violent attacks on public populations going about their daily lives is emerging on two continents. It seems that the issues in our time for families is increasingly measured in their levels of trauma and vulnerability. Europe as a whole is in danger of becoming desensitized to the issues of famine, war displacement and violence the effects of which can appear in our therapy rooms and in the lives of our students and colleagues.