Live poem Pillar meeting 'Back to People'
The street as the basis for policy
From Citizen Power Limburg:
"On Thursday, Oct. 12, the Pillar Meeting 'back to people-the street as the basis of policy' took place in Heerlen. During this afternoon several 'difference makers' spoke and we concluded with a presentation by Michelle van Tongerloo. She talked about her experiences as a street doctor in Rotterdam.
The afternoon ended with a beautiful poem by Amber-Helena Reisig. She took her own experiences and created a poetic summary of the meeting. You can read the poem below. We will soon release a report with all the findings of this inspiring afternoon.
Some responses that emerged this afternoon included, "The people who need the most help get the least help." And, "Fair care requires fundamental social change."
back to man
was I such a child, I wonder as I listen to street doctor Michelle[i],
such a vulnerable child, was my mother such a mother who didn't-whose
responsibility was it, was I, when youth services wanted to place me out of home
because I, sixteen years old, asked for more home care for
my sick mother, because she was entitled to it, because I thought it was unfair
whose responsibility was it when I, just eighteen years old,
had to move out of my house because my mother had died
and I was suddenly no longer entitled to our social housing, because I was
too young, I was not entitled to stufi because I had stopped school
because my mother was dying and there was not enough home care
there is help, says Han[ii] who cycles through his city, not only asks
where it is lacking, but also where it hurts, does not move within
frameworks, makes space where often there is no space - Han is not a heavy letter
that anxiously crawls under the doormat, Han you can read without words-
book, Han is not banging on your door, but on the door of policy
Sylvia[iii] looks behind that front door and sees the letters lying around, the stove
locked in the kitchen, while a family is on fire
we'll solve it ourselves, Sylvia thinks when at night her phone
lights up - not the administrator or the driver, but citizens
collect the diapers, bring a loaf of bread, see the child, the human
I could have become a client, says Hubert[iv], a donkey doesn't
stumble twice - three times Hubert lost everything, but he saw:
it's not the donkey but the stéén - since when is a dwelling
a reward, for the wanderer who only screams
Hubert listens to that scream, kicks at those stones
Michelle sees the hypocrisy of the system - how the gz and
the neighborhood team and the psychologist and the school and the municipality
and the urgent care agency and the emergency room and the social
service and the homeless shelters - just listing it is
exhausting - not knowing whose responsibility it is
and if it's anybody's fault at all, it's the mother with
a child at her breast who can't go to daycare, the homeless
whose leg is lying open, as a symbol of how policy festers
and politicians swear - you just have to have the nerve as a doctor to stamp
on something as simple as the lack of heating
a roof over your head, preventing an amputation,
help for a child who has had a child, no longer
sleeping in a tent in the park - it is often a simple request:
where are you going to go when the benches are gone, when even the cold ground
has thresholds, the city throws you one big, angry look, eats you up
I always wonder, how people look at people like me,
if it's not noticeable that I was once stuck in it, that system, and how
afraid I still am every day of falling down the ladder called self-sufficiency
- but even more afraid of the fate of
the people who keep reaching for that ladder like a Tantalus torment,
who always just can't reach it or usually can't reach it at all
and I hope you can lower the ladder
© Amber-Helena Reisig
