Dear all of you,

Congratulations for the Smart Hero Award. But, what is even more important, thank you very much for the global-corona.blog! You’ve put a lot of work in this, and probably far more than what is already visible from the outside - as organizers, translators, contributors and as a team. Thank you, not (only) for the Smart Hero Award, but (due to the occasion of the award) for your commitment - and for the voices from the South who are, yet again, doing development work here (in the North).

Once again: The idea of the global-corona.blog is extremely important. Not only because Corona will be with us for quite a while - far beyond a possible vaccine and persist in the Global South even longer. But because this ongoing moment is characterized above all by the fact that everyone (people and nations) is thrown back on themselves. Along with this development goes a renewed legitimacy to dwell in one’s own worries, caring about oneself – and just oneself alone. Therefore, it is symptomatic, that similar blogs and reports, which popped up at the beginning of the pandemic, already ceased away or spinned to other urgent issues. In contrast, your global-corona.blog turns this moment’s movement upside-down. Turning it into a prism to perceive the other others (of the global south), their situations and needs. There is a need for such solidary endeavours now more than ever. Moreover, through a media format which sets out from the personal experience of the other person - and the encounter with it - to grasp and understand the national peculiarities and global connections.

There are these people out there (including teachers), interested in others and being aware of this implicit renationalization, looking for ways and opportunities transcending it. As well as there are certainly many more voices out there, from different social backgrounds in many parts of the world, that have important things to say and that you can collect.

Please keep this global-corona.blog going! Thank you very much!

Yours

Benjamin Bunk

(on behalf of the board of the One World Network Thuringia e.V.)

Find more information and the video of the award ceremony on facebook.