‘This I can Carry’ is the second in my series of project examining Abraham Maslow’s ‘Hierarchy of Need’.

Direct link to the project: This I can carry

Comment:

Your books … I read the Refugee one, ‘This I can Carry’, first…probably because I am passionate about people and especially people needing support. I loved it – I loved the pictures, I loved the story, I found myself understanding the plight of refugees on a much deeper level and it will stay with me forever. Thank you!

Shauna Bradley

Comment:

When I first saw this picture of that backpack, it instantly remembered me of my two grandmothers: both of them had been in the situation to have to leave their homes together with their children within a couple of hours. They too had to get on the road, making hundreds of miles by foot with their children with only what they could carry. Their reports about what that had been like had been part of my childhood and the question “what would you take with you?” became sort of a regular played game amongst us grandchildren. Having to leave home was a constant fear in my childhood, actually it followed me into my adult life: Over the years I bought plenty of small-sized gold coins to take them with me in case I´d have to leave. To me, being child of a refugee family, that´s not just a theoretical imagination.

Kettwig, the town I live in, happens to be a place where many well-educated and accordingly rich people live. We had been well organized and prepared long before “our” refugees arrived here. There are about 100 volunteers caring about them. (So I am not somebody “special” just because I do so…) Some help the children with their homeworks, some do the papers and accompany the refugees to doctors and public councils, some care about housing, some care about geting them to work and some teach german. Many of us don´t do all this because we love all the refugees, but because we know that if we don´t manage to intigrate (most of) them, they might become a threat to our society. So we do not only work for them, but also for us. And, apart from that, it is good for ourselves: it is great to see that together we can accomplish something and additionally we´re having great fun together! It is good for OUR society to stand together in order to make things work and live peacefully together. Here in Kettwig we are proud about every refugee who gets settled.

Gaby Krentscher