There are places in this world where fear envelops everything: every day, every night, every sleep, every waking moment, every hunger, every love, every breath.

There are places in this world where hope, dreams, and the desire to live, has limits and boundaries.

There are places in this world, places … that generate fear.

There are people in this world who have forgotten who they were, how they were, what they loved, what they wanted.

There are people in this world that cease to be a man, a woman, rather to become someone easier to ignore, to deny, to exclude, to reject.

There are people in this world, people … who are afraid.

And there are people in this world who believe that their fears are more valuable than the fears of others; whose fears are more important, more sizeable, and need more attention. They believe that their fears legitimize them, empower them, give them authority, supremacy, rule, and privileges.

There are people, people in this world … that generate fear.

Then there are people in this world who face their fears, their despair and they fight because … because they must, because it gives them life, because the alternative to not fighting gives panic, terror. So you fight for you, for your family, for your people, for them.

And there are people in this world who struggle with their own fears so as to oppress others. People who struggle and who fight. Because they know that fear, unlike people, does not make distinctions, does not discriminate, does not segregate.

There are people in this world who just want to live without fear.

–Isabel Balingha, Red Cross

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