Where we are now
Healing Justice Netherlands is in its first months. We are still being born. This page holds what we believe and what we are committed to growing toward. Some of it is already in place. Much of it we will build slowly, together, as people and resources arrive.
Our first gatherings are an experiment. We'll pay attention to what works, what causes harm, what we assumed wrongly and what people actually need, and let that shape what we become.
The vision is large. The organisation doesn't have to be. We don't need to build every answer ourselves: many groups are already doing good work around us, and we want to connect with them rather than try to do it all.
We would rather be honest than impressive. Where something isn't ready yet, we'll say so, and we'll keep updating this page as we learn what's possible.
What we're growing
Under the forest floor, mycelium quietly connects everything, carrying nourishment to wherever it's needed most. No single thread holds the forest. All of them do. That's the kind of community we're growing.
For now, our heart is simple: we come together, support each other in small peer groups, learn, practise, share our stories and imagine, growing what our community can hold and create together. From those relationships, we'll discover what else wants to grow, and what doesn't.
Gather
Our heart. Coming together in The Hague, and online as we grow. In small peer support groups of around eight people, we meet regularly and hold each other through what we're carrying. In larger gatherings, we settle, rest, eat, make music and practise care together, with room for ritual, prayer, traditional medicine and the spiritual practices of our many traditions. A place to feel a little less alone.
Learn
Learning from each other, not from experts, including the artists, researchers and activists among us. Embodied practices we return to between gatherings, like breath circles, somatic workshops, yoga, tai chi and qi gong, walks on the land and cooking together, skillshares on what nobody explained to us but everyone expected us to know, and the stories we carry, shared and honoured with care.
Build
Growing what our community can hold. Over time, members become hosts, facilitators, storytellers and co builders, paid for their work, and a web of care grows between us. Step by step, as trust grows, this becomes a community its people own.
Imagine and act
We dream together about the world we want, rehearse it through art, story and action, then take on what harms us, one issue at a time, chosen together in our listening circles: from housing, ethnic profiling and environmental racism to bodily autonomy, trans healthcare and how Dutch institutions treat us. We start small, and let it grow.
Topics we might explore. Members choose what we take on each season, and we start with only a few.
- Visa and migration
- Money literacy
- Building a commune
- Sustainability careers for people of colour
- Navigating Dutch systems
- Ancestral and spiritual practice
- Environmental justice and climate grief
- Reproductive justice and trans healthcare
- Sharing our stories
- Imagining futures together
- Breath circles
- Somatic workshops
- Yoga, tai chi and qi gong
- Walks on the land
- Food workshops