Today I’m going in a different direction than normal. I want to express my total rejection of the barbarism that a “man” has decided to carry out for the sole fact of… What? Honestly, I find no reason but unfounded excuses to end the lives of people, men and women, children, and thousands of young people who have barely begun to live and who have to be unjustly separated from their parents. That’s it if they don’t die before reaching a “safe” place but without their “belongings”, their life, their history, their friends, their home, their city, their town, and their —already broken— dreams.

I’m writing this post with teary eyes and a broken heart due to a situation none of us would like to experience.

Three years ago, in March of 2019, thanks to the MoPED: Modernization of Pedagogical Higher Education by Innovative Teaching Instruments project, and invited by my colleague and teacher of the University of Deusto, Olga Dziabenko, I had the pleasure of travelling to Ukraine to contribute on the training of more than 50 teachers of Higher Education, in my case, related to teacherpreneurs. I discovered the kindness of its people, as well as their traditions and history (and I took a piece of it with me). But honestly, something that caught my eye was that, even though they are not “privileged” in a material level, as I might be, they were people like me, passionate and willing to work and improve, dreaming of going forward and progressing on the education sector, and so thankful and expressing their recognition towards me that they made me feel very valuable.

Today I want to give them back that love, appreciation and acknowledgement to all of them, and, specially, be at their disposal to anything I might be able to offer.

This post goes for them and for Olga Dziabenko, for giving me the opportunity of living firsthand with their Ukrainian colleagues. Thank you, Olga.

SAY NO TO WAR.

Translated by María Ubierna Quintanilla and supervised by Arantza Arruti.