“We Create the Safe Space Together”

What sustains us in a community? What makes a group process truly successful? The Roots and Wings Foundation (RWF) ALUMNI – Solidarity Community Programme starts out with these very questions, focusing on long-term professional and personal connections, mutual learning, and possible collaborations. ALUMNI is a growing community where trust and safe space are shared resources, built together.

What makes us feel truly safe in a group?

In spring 2025, RWF launched the ALUMNI – Solidarity Network Program to create a supportive learning community of participants who do difficult, socially valuable, gap-filling work to improve the situation of women and girls. They are committed to their own development, eager to learn, and to draw strength from their own and each other’s experiences.

Participants are former grantees of our Solidarity Women’s Programme who were invited into ALUMNI: staff members and volunteers of Utcáról Lakásba! Association, Hiányzó Láncszem Foundation, the Másállapotot a Szülészetben! movement, Élmény Tár, and She for She. Many things connect them—one of the most important being that they all represent women’s issues and work with women or girls in their organizations.

All participants agreed: without safe space, the goals of this program cannot be realized. Safety does not appear automatically—it must be consciously and collectively created and sustained. One of the key tools for this is the group agreements, developed together by participants.

With guidance from Utcáról Lakásba! Association, the group explored the theme of safety from three angles, creating a colorful yet clear “safety map”:

In a safe space, there is no need to fear conflict—conflicts can become opportunities for learning. It is crucial that everyone feels this way and participates accordingly: here, each person has both a place and a voice. In the words of one participant: “Positive examples are contagious—they set off a chain reaction.”

At the beginning of the program, it is especially important that the emerging community develops the ability to create and sustain a sense of safety. Safety means not only that everyone can speak freely, but also that there is room for silence, for moving stories, for vulnerability.

The facilitator is responsible for the process, but maintaining the framework is not theirs alone: the whole community works on it together, supported by the group’s collectively created rules. This becomes particularly crucial when sensitive topics arise—whether social injustices, women’s traumas, or sharing organizational challenges and failures.

ALUMNI’s goal: to learn from each other and grow together

As a funder, RWF has always built long-term, trust-based relationships and collaborations with the organizations it supports. With ALUMNI, our aim is to enable these previously supported groups to get to know one another and to lay the foundations for professional connections. Working together fosters the personal and professional growth of staff and may also spark collaborations between participating organizations.

Over the course of the year, participants will:

• visit each other’s organizations
• exchange experiences
• reflect together on their challenges
• and even launch joint project activities

Participatory filmmaking, DAJER community space

The program offers not only internal reflection but also opportunities to experiment with new methods. Documentary filmmaker Sára Haragonics introduces participatory filmmaking, giving participants a chance not only to appear as subjects but also to shape the narrative. Aliz Miklusicsák presents the DAJER Foundation, whose mission is to increase the visibility of women over 40. Their community space hosts thematic discussions, exhibitions, and events centered on freedom, self-awareness, and creativity.

Solidarity, not judgment – our steps toward one another

The spirit of ALUMNI lies not only in what it does but in how it does it. The 3–4-hour in-person sessions are facilitated by Gabi Benedek, a RWF colleague, with dedication, warmth, and countless small acts of care. She strives to make these sessions a source of energy for participants, helping them feel the growing value of their work, while the shared space at Molnár Street 26 becomes a place that strengthens them.

A space where women’s power, freedom, and trust are not just words but lived experiences.

All participants are deeply committed to the belief that social change is a collective cause—and that no one has to face this work alone.

Written and photographed by Dóra Simay