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Letter of the chairwoman: team, commitment, resilience and endeavour

THE ENDEAVOUR of each and every one of us, from the smallest to the biggest, independently of the duties of each one, helped us survive the extraordinary circumstances and which brought out the best in ourselves

I always try to dodge introduction letters which sometimes seem formals and too institutional. This year, there was no doubt that the expression of what have been living and that the results of our work couldn’t have been handled in a better way than by this letter. Maybe it is less about the introduction of the content and more about the impetus measures of what has been lived.   

We just went through two, three harsh years (referring to the pre Covid19 time span), years during which a crisis took over but that we confronted by means of a growth proposal and by taking into account the risk, the effort and the tiredness of a lot of us. In this moments, we have to face the unthinkable: the pandemic. The survival spirit in management made necessary a fast restructuration of the basis of the directorate, the technical, the administrative and the educative divisions, to make them more efficient than ever before, facing day by day the unknown Covid19 with militancy.   

We go forth, without looking forward nor backward, we remain in the present. We give a fast answer to the day-to-day needs which give us the informations for the next day. Our priorities: taking care of our youngsters, protecting our teams and to make our foundation survive. The common objective is to stand TOGETHER, from the government authorities to the front line teams, to all those we met unexpectedly. We could detail tens of things which are being set up (protection teams inquiries which did not exist before, distribution of accumulated hours to cover the workers if they get ill, provisions for the next lockdowns, etc.)  

I remember the day they announced the lockdown, a team of directors were getting back from a national FEPA (federation of projects and supervised residencies’ organizations) meeting. In the fast train on their way back, they were giving directives and searching how to meet the needs of our youngsters already dealing with the first symptoms. Also, I remember receiving a picture on WhatsApp of an educator entering a supermarket with a trolley to discover empty shelfs. The day after the start of the lockdown, a crisis management group went to assess the situation to give answers. The weekly videoconference meetings started to become common and the technical team started to use social medias as a remedy against the isolation of the youngsters living in centers, participatory and joint work dynamics were designed to ease their fears, rurales spaces were set up to diversify the cares and impact of the groups and much more.    

COMMITMENT with society goes way further than the battle against consequences regarding our centers and workers (and their families) in the context of the pandemic. Society keeps the execution of its annual plan on the side to face the pandemic. Among several topics, we went to the FEPA’s board and we designed new projects intended for homeless youngsters and we are getting ready to set up services which should have started but were finally postponed to 2021.   

CERTAINTY in an unhoped situation which brings us a thoughtless reality, and the innate survival abilities of children, teenagers and youngsters to the point they chose to be exemplary resilient thereafter and the immediate realization of the leaders and educators eased their fear with doses of affection.   

ENDEAVOUR of each person, from the smallest to the biggest, independently of their responsibilities helped us survive in those extraordinary circumstances, which gave the opportunity to provide the best of ourselves.   

Like always, I’m telling you, and this time with capital letters, THANK YOU FROM THE BOTTOM OF MY HEARTH to all those part of the Eveho’s family. AND A WARM EMBRACE to all the educators badly affected by the Covid19 and by the loss of loved ones.  

Rosa Almeda Edo – Chairwoman of the Eveho Foundation