CORONA LOCK DOWN: STORIES FROM EUROPEAN HUMANIST PROFESSIONALS (view as pdf)
“The division I work for (Social Medical Services) went on lock down pretty fast for clients and patients. Only a small number of the staff was allowed to come in, so my work as humanist chaplain stopped. House visits weren’t possible as well so all that remained was support by phone. However, that felt very limited as well since a lot of the job is through context, presence and voice. What was possible was something I already did, but this time in a different way: activities for contemplation. Only this time, instead of doing them on missions or in excercises, I made videos from home. Making the series ‘Mijmeringen’ on Youtube helped me to keep some structure and at least something good came out of it.”
Gösta Huijs,
Humanist Chaplain, Dutch armed forces
“A lot of the planned weddings this Summer has been postponed by the couples themselves for obvious reasons. Some couples who had planned for a Civil wedding at City Halls this spring that was cancelled by the Cities, still wanted to get married now, and not later, and asked the NHA if we could help them out. And to quote the 44th US President: “Yes we can”. As long as we operate within the regulations and guidelines set out by the authorities at any given time.
Rules for social distancing in Norway was somewhat moderate compared to a lot of other countries. 2 meters separation between people from different households, and no large groups of people. The 2-meter rule being the most important one. Indoor weddings was not impossible to conduct, but we have for the most part done them outdoors in parks and with a scaled down ceremony. In many cases just a short speech by the celebrant and then the formal part involving the usual questions, exchange of rings, signing of the marriage document and pronouncing the couple lawfully married. It is possible to have music and poem readings, but we didn’t encourage it under these circumstances.
We kept it simple. When it came to the signing of the document the couple, witnesses and celebrant brought their own pens and we used hand disinfectant as needed.” You can watch a VIDEO HERE of one of the ceremonies.
Baard Thalberg,
Wedding and funeral celebrant Human-Etisk Forbund, Norway
“Especially in the beginning, the lock down was very confronting. Not being able to do my thing anymore, time was being taken away. Not seeing ‘my’ children anymore. We could choose how we wanted to keep teaching. Whether through sending assignments or online. In the beginning I chose assignments.
I tried to focus as much as I could on topics like solidarity, kindness, citizenship… I also gave assignments to do with the family. For example, they had to pick one member of the household and ‘spoil’ them for a whole week. We did a lot on feelings as well. Some children were ‘angry’ at the virus, some were very sad. Many children had learned how important their friends were.
It was quite difficult at times. Sometimes I felt a bit useless. I really missed the contact. We couldn’t work in all our schools to keep the ‘bubbles’ small. Some of us also had to teach all the children of the different life stance classes. So it was difficult but I do feel that very importnat lessons were learned.”
Britt Baetens,
Humanist Teacher, Antwerp Belgium
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