Our Season’s Greetings 2020
This year has been a challenging one, for each and every single one of us and also for us as organization and movement. We had to find ways to cope, to adjust to a dramatically new reality, to support each other and our communities. We had to reinvent our work.
The coronavirus pandemic has shown the detrimental role alcohol plays in our societies. Alcohol weakens the immune system of the human body and the health systems of our countries.
In Movendi International, we had to change the way we work, but we did not stop. On the contrary, we stepped up. We did it together and I am very proud of the way we and our members in communities around the world have responded.
From Zimbabwe to Scandinavia, from Bosnia to Sri Lanka, our team wishes our members, partners, friends and colleagues safe and peaceful holidays and a happy and healthy 2021.
Looking back at 2020
Together means that we welcomed 16 new Member Organizations into our global movement in 2020.
Together means that we worked to support, inspire and empower our Member Organizations through capacity-building initiatives, joint projects and joint advocacy.
Together means that we arranged more than 40 virtual events, among them for example weekly alcohol policy discussions exclusive for our members.
And together means that we have really stepped up to respond to the pandemic and help out our communities.
In the ongoing public health crisis that is COVID-19, Movendi International members are responding in impressive and inspiring ways. There is a vast number of member organizations who are running critical initiatives as part of the fight against the novel coronavirus and for the protection of people, families and communities. The initiatives range from information campaigns in the most marginalized villages, to online meetings and workshops, to offering healthy activities and coping advice for children, to making protective equipment and delivering face masks.
Looking ahead towards 2021
2021 is already looming large. And with the work we were able to do together under the very difficult and challenging circumstances of 2020, I have big hopes for the coming year.
In 2021 we will celebrate our 170th anniversary. We will work to advance the global discourse about the real effects of alcohol and we will invest even bigger efforts into replacing the current alcohol norm with a healthier and more inclusive social norms – work that has already commenced.
In 2021 we will also dive more deeply into advocacy work to support WHO and our governments in the development of a global action plan to improve the implementation of the WHO Global Alcohol Strategy. And we will step up further our support to the SAFER initiative at WHO.
With everything we have learned throughout 2020, I’m looking forward to working even more closely with our members and to develop our work together. We have substantial challenges ahead of us but if we work together, support one another and amplify each other’s strengths, I’m confident that we can transform those challenges into real opportunities.
