2/2 “My father is Dutch and my mother is from Suriname so I am a mix. In the past few years there have been a lot of debates about racism and many people are starting to speak out. For a long time, I wasn’t sure how to act in these discussions. Still I somehow felt that I needed to define my role within this new movement so I started to research the concept what it means to be an activist. I interviewed many activists and feminists. I became more aware of racism and I got more guts to speak out. For a while I would stand up whenever I would hear someone say something racist or sexist. I noticed that some people around me would take distance because of that. I sometimes would even go against my own father and I would point out the fact that he is a white man. Soon I also realized that it doesn’t work to drop little bombs everywhere I go. I realized I was losing nuance. I don’t want to look at my father as a ‘white man’, but as a person I don’t always agree with. I’m not only my skin colour either. Now I know that I can still be an activist and stand up for myself. I won’t be silent anymore, but but I don’t need to end up in a debate everywhere I go. Through my research I never really found an answer to what defines an activist but along the road I did find an activist within myself. ”

“She is Israeli and I’m half Dutch and half Hungarian. We went to the same international school in Bosnia. We were never close friends until most of our common friends went abroad during the holidays. Both of us were bored at home so she asked me to go on a trip with her. We decided to hitchhike from our hometown Mostar to Sarajevo. It’s about 80 kilometers but it took us more than 14 rides to get to there. Honestly it didn’t matter because we were on a adventure. During that trip we became close friends and we experienced so much. One of the highlights was when we hiked up a mountain. At the beginning of the trail we had two options. we could either take the stairs or actually climb the mountain by foot which would take twice as long. We did not need to think about it. Why take the stairs if you can actually climb the mountain.”