Valeria came to Belgium for two weeks. Four years have passed.
She arrived ten days before the war began – just a trip, a light backpack, no plans to stay. When returning home became impossible, she decided she had to keep moving forward – and threw herself into everything at once: two universities, language courses, sports classes. A year later, complete burnout.
“I ALWAYS WANTED TO IMPROVE THIS WORLD AND MAKE IT BRIGHTER. BUT I UNDERSTOOD: TO HELP OTHERS, YOU FIRST HAVE TO HELP YOURSELF.”
She slowed down. Started painting – at an art brunch she painted a grapefruit and realised she had come back to the taste of life. She went to work at a social centre – and there, among people going through something similar, she found what she had been looking for in lecture halls and gyms.
For Valeria, nature is not only trees and rivers. It is people who reach toward the light. Shared experience that brings us closer. An openness that needs no explanation.
“If there is someone like me, then there are other bright people out there. You just have to show yourself — and they will find you.”
Project: Healing Land.Voices Voice: Valeria Location: Belgium
