About us

Why healing justice

The world lands in our bodies and minds. Racism. Ableism. Migration. Work that never feels secure. A warming world that hits our families first, here and back home. The long, quiet labour of translating ourselves for systems that were not built for us. It can show up as tension, exhaustion, sleepless nights, or the distance we keep even from the people we love. And not everything we feel in our bodies is damage to repair. Many of us are sick, disabled, chronically ill, Deaf or neurodivergent. Sometimes that came from the same violence and neglect we're naming here; sometimes it's how we were born. Either way, our bodies and minds don't need fixing for us to belong, and our pain deserves care, not shame.

We adapted to survive. Bracing, overworking, holding everything together, pushing through pain: these were brilliant strategies in impossible conditions, and they got us here. Sick and disabled people of colour have long known how to survive a world that wasn't made for us, and that knowledge is wisdom, not weakness. We can honour it, and still get curious about what else might be possible now.

Healing justice asks: what would it take for all of us to thrive, including those of us whose bodies and minds will never be "fixed", and never needed to be? It treats our pain as political and our care for each other as part of how the world changes. The body is where oppression lands, and it is also where freedom can be felt.

We aren't trying to go back to who we were before, or to become someone with a different body. We are becoming more ourselves: more connected, more honest with ourselves, more able to ask for what we need and give what we can. Needing care isn't a failure. It's how all of us live. That's how we build the world we're longing for: together, at a pace our bodies can sustain, one small room at a time.

What we believe

We believe healing happens in relationship. Much of what hurt us happened between people, and so does the way back: through being seen, held and trusted. Relationship is where change actually lives.

We believe healing and justice need each other. Healing alone won't change the conditions that harm us, and it doesn't have to earn its place by what it produces: being well together is already part of what we're fighting for. But the capacities we grow here, trust, courage, asking for what we need, disagreeing and repairing, are what make acting together possible.

Our vision

We dream of a world where queer people of colour don't have to shrink, brace or explain ourselves to belong. Where we can feel our lives fully, the grief and the pleasure, without having to go numb or stay on guard just to survive. Where our boundaries are honoured and our longings are taken seriously. Where power becomes something that tends rather than harms, and where there is enough: enough care, enough time, enough rest, enough love to go around.

A world where disabled, sick and neurodivergent people of colour are at the centre of how we care, not an afterthought. Where care flows through webs of people who show up for each other, not through charity. Where no one is disposable, and our safety comes from each other rather than from punishment.

We are not waiting for that world to arrive. We practise it now, in how we speak to each other, how we repair, how we share what we have. Every small, honest moment of care is a seed of it.

How we heal together

Come as you are. Tired, grieving, furious, curious, unsure. Everything you bring is information: about what you have survived, and about what you need now.

We're here to practise becoming people who can stay with ourselves and each other when it gets hard: who can feel, say no, say yes, disagree, repair, share power and stay. What we practise, we become. It starts small, in a room, in a breath, in one honest conversation, and it spreads.

We move at the speed of trust. We would rather go deep with a few than wide with many, because real connection is what makes change last. What we pay attention to grows, so we choose to pay attention to care, to pleasure, to joy, and to each other.

Talking and understanding matter, but they aren't enough on their own. What we have lived through is held in our bodies, and bodies learn through practice: small things, done often, like humming, rocking, grounding or simply settling together. So we practise at every gathering and in between them. Over time, we want to grow a culture of our own: rituals, songs and practices that belong to this community and get passed on.

What we practise

Belonging and care: You don't have to leave any part of yourself at the door. Not your queerness, not your accent, not your grief, not your disability, not your mobility aid, not your bad days. Care isn't a reward for being productive or easy to love. It's how we remember we're human.
Boundaries and consent: Boundaries aren't walls. They're what let us stay close to each other without abandoning ourselves. Consent here is alive: it lives in the body, it can change, and every no is honoured. It's also about yes: noticing what we actually want, asking for it without expecting a guarantee, and letting ourselves receive without rushing to repay.
Accountability and repair: We will hurt each other sometimes, even in spaces made with love. When it happens, we turn toward it rather than away: naming it, taking responsibility, and asking what needs to change, in ourselves, between us, and in how we've set things up, so it doesn't keep happening. Some of what hurts between us is old trauma that looks like personality or habit. Facing it is painful, but it's the pain that helps us grow. Repair doesn't always mean closeness again, and no one is thrown away. We're building a clear process for when someone is harmed, together with our co builders and members. Accountability is love in action.
Collective access and care webs: Access isn't a favour we grant. It's something we build together, so that all of us can be here. We move at a pace bodies can actually sustain, and we weave webs of care so no one has to carry their needs alone.
Curiosity and courage: We aim for care and integrity, not perfection. We stay curious about what we don't know yet, let feedback keep us alive and learning, and find the courage to say and do hard things, with support.
Embodiment and practice: Our bodies carry the stories of our ancestors and the possibility of a different future. Healing isn't somewhere we arrive. It's something we practise, gently, again and again.
Interdependence and imagination: We were never meant to do this alone. We try to give back more than we take, because that's how abundance grows. Every time we treat each other differently, we rehearse a world where all of us can finally rest. Hope, for us, is not a feeling we wait for. It's a practice we return to, every day, together.

Our lineage

This work grows from roots we didn't plant. Healing justice was shaped by Black and brown organisers in the US South, including the Kindred Southern Healing Justice Collective, and by Black feminist and Black freedom traditions. We learn from the disability justice movement and Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, from abolitionist and transformative justice organisers including Mariame Kaba, and from Prentis Hemphill and the Embodiment Institute, adrienne maree brown, Lumos Transforms, the Spring Up collective, Resmaa Menakem and Grace Lee Boggs.

And we are in conversation with what our own ancestors carried: the healing practices of the many places our families come from, and the resistance to Dutch colonialism that still lives in so many of our stories.

Those lineages are rarely written down, so we want to gather them together. Over time, with our members, we'll collect and honour the stories, healing practices, histories and resistance of our own families and communities, from Suriname, the Caribbean, Indonesia and the Moluccas to Africa, Asia, the Middle East, Latin America and beyond. Remembering is part of how we heal generational trauma. We won't treat these traditions as a resource to take from, mix or consume. We learn from specific people and communities, with context, permission and credit, and we give back to them.

Who this is for

This is a priority space, led by and centring queer people of colour. We hold and safeguard queer, trans and non binary people of colour first, especially those who are also working class, disabled, migrants or undocumented, or sex workers, and Black trans women in particular.

Around that centre, we welcome people of colour in the Netherlands more broadly: newcomers and people born here, students, workers, parents, organisers, caregivers, and anyone trying to build a life with dignity.

We are not one community simply because we have been racialised. We carry different histories, languages, faiths, classes, papers and relationships to Dutch colonialism, and anti Blackness and colourism live among us too. We don't paper over those differences. We name them, and learn to hold them together.

What you can expect

Gatherings in English, with Dutch spoken where the group wants it.
You are never asked to share personal stories. What you share, and how, is always your choice.
Photo free spaces, and consent before anyone is photographed.
Access is collective. Tell us your access needs when you sign up, and we will do what we can to build the space with you, and be honest about what we can't yet offer.
Every gathering begins by settling together, arriving in whatever way works for your body and mind.
We aim to have embodied practices led by people trained in trauma informed somatic work, and you can always adapt a practice or sit it out.
Peer support groups are small and confidential: what's shared in the group stays in the group. They're held by a peer facilitator with support from our team, and like all our gatherings, they are not therapy.
Rest is a full way of taking part. You can arrive late, leave early, lie down, step out or simply be in the room.
Over time, we want to build online and hybrid ways to take part, so being in The Hague in person isn't the only way in. We're not there yet.
Each gathering will have a community safety plan and people ready to hold it, so we can look after each other when something goes wrong. We're building this with our co builders and will keep improving it.
We collect as little information about you as possible, never record anyone's residence status, and keep what we hold private.
Our gatherings are spaces for community learning and practice. They are not therapy and cannot offer crisis support.