Gaza Strip
December 24, 2025
Not a week goes by without a thought turning to the challenges of Nove in the complex reality we live in. All around, winter is challenging: with the lights off, violations, incursions, and attacks are a daily occurrence, making no noise, as is the fact that on the other side of the fence, little or no traffic passes through due to a potential “double deployment.” It’s raining, it’s cold, and thousands of children are in the mud. A shame that lingers, under the sky that towers over everyone, and that doesn’t slip from those who witness it, often helpless.
February 10, 2026
One more night on a cot in a building adjacent to Rafah hospital. For weeks, the media spotlight has been turned off, but explosions and attacks continue to wound and kill. In the pitch darkness, it’s impossible to know what’s happening out there. The nonexistent answers create anxiety; we need a change of perspective. And then it happens that, under tattered curtains, one is enchanted by the improbable: a baby girl is born, beautiful, open eyes, not a cry, she almost seems amused. To reach dawn, there is no other way than a night searching for the name of a star.
A.
Kuwait
March 7, 2026
After a week of continuous attacks with drones and missiles, I am leaving Kuwait to bring my daughter back to Italy. In recent days, many animals seemed to perceive the booms just before the explosion; birds took flight just before the anti-aircraft guns were fired, and our cats, for whom those noises were completely new, as for most living beings in this part of the world, went to seek shelter under sofas and armchairs.
Elena
Ukraine
March 5, 2026
I’m still here. It seems we’re overcoming the cold; it’s been a very harsh winter.
March 15, 2026
Spring in Ukraine begins on March 1st, not the 21st. In Kyiv, they really got it back by force after three months of a harsh winter. Everyone went out into the streets; on March 8th, it was full of flowers. We were all fed up with the lack of electricity for up to 20 hours a day, no hot water, and no heating. I moved in January, after the attack that brought the city to its knees. Inside the house, I could see the cloud of my own breath; it was too cold. Children who had finally returned to school in September were forced to stay home again because some schools, without heating, closed. It’s a strategy aimed at dampening morale, but Ukrainians are not giving up.
Letizia
Italy
March 11, 2026, Salerno
Yesterday, a ‘murder mystery dinner’ was held to raise funds for NOVE in the former Arsenali, where the beach was located until the 19th century.
March 12, 2026, Salerno
We also revived the Sant’Andrea Association project, into which I grafted a group of young architects who run a collective and cultural centre.
Paola
March 30, 2026, Palermo
Life always surprises, especially in the unpredictable trajectories of encounters. At the airport, last September 10th, I saw Ayeda arrive: a two-year-old Afghan girl weighing seven kilos, arriving from Iran and suffering from a rare disease. There was only one way to save her life: a liver transplant. From that moment, the story of Ayeda and her parents has become intertwined with my own, with NOVE, and with a network of volunteers throughout Italy. That’s how the possibility of a transplant at ISMETT in Palermo arose. Then time passed, filled with anticipation, fear, and hope. I will never forget February 18th. Ten hours of surgery. While the little girl was in the operating room, I held her mother’s hands in mine, trying to convey strength, presence, and life. And she said to me: “From today we are sisters.” In a few days, Ayeda will be discharged, and I will carry with me, indelible, the profound sense of what it means to be there.
Teresa
Uganda
March 8, 2026
In Italy, it’s still called “Women’s Day,” but in reality it’s International Women’s Day, a difference that’s anything but semantic. I’m at Malpensa Airport, departing for Kampala. I’ve never seen it so empty. The bartender tells me it’s been like this for days: people are afraid to move, perhaps afraid of everything they can’t control. I understand; it seems to me, too, that the safest place would be my living room. However, work calls me to Uganda today, to understand if and how it is still possible to support, accompany, and stay.
March 17, 2026
I am in Gulu, northern Uganda, in the Acholi region. Here is one of the largest refugee populations in the world. They come from South Sudan, Sudan, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. All war zones. All places where, once again, women and children pay the highest price. This land today appears quiet, almost suspended. Yet the war has never truly ended: it can be felt in the generations, in the silences, in the life trajectories that still bear the marks of what once was. And while elsewhere fear immobilises and holds people back, here life continues to reorganise itself around survival, care, and the fragile but stubborn possibility of remaining human.
Arianna
Afghanistan
January 1, 2026
I arrive in Kabul today. Moving from Milan to here is always a shock. From the window, I see peeling houses, tangles of swaying electrical wires, and roofs covered in debris. In the streets, people pedalling rickety bicycles, pedestrians in a hurry, no doubt, the usual burqa-clad beggars sitting on the ground in front of bakeries, and carts slowly moving, selling all sorts of things. And the worst is yet to come.
Happy New Year.
March 16, 2026
The anti-aircraft guns are in flux, which means Pakistani planes have bombed somewhere. In my area, everything is quiet. I’m in bed with a boring book.
Alberto
Mexico
March 20, 2026
I see that Mexican poverty shows a different form than Afghan poverty: it disguises itself as progress and modernity, but translates into daily fragility made up of informal jobs, insecurity, and the absence of real social safety nets, leaving many lives suspended.
Alessandra
Syria
March 23, 2026
Hi Susanna. I’m fine…At first, objects (probably missiles) were seen quite frequently in the Syrian skies, flying from one side to the other, and many were intercepted, causing damage and deaths from falling pieces. For about 10 days, the frequency has decreased. We are now considered the safest country in the area, and the Syrian authorities are trying to stay out of the conflict. But the situation could change at any moment.
A.
These are excerpts from messages recently received from some NOVE members.
Everyone has their own job, but still dedicates time and energy to our association. Some contribute after a long day, some in their spare time on the weekend, some simply with an idea shared at the right time.
NOVE is also a network of people, stories, and passions that intertwine, despite the distance.
