There’s something I’ve never really shared.
What it actually feels like to sit with the videos our teams send me,
the ones I watch alone before deciding what the world should see.
They don’t arrive gently. They don’t give me time to prepare.
They just drop into my phone, one after another.
Afghanistan.
A mother in the snow, her newborn pressed into her shawl. Her lips blue.
Her hands shaking as she begs for warmth, not money.
Her whole body wrapped around a child she’s trying to keep alive with nothing but her own heat.
I have to pause the video.
Sometimes my heart needs a moment before my eyes can go on.
@forgottenwomenuk A #mother in #Afghanistan begs in the freezing #snow 😢
Then Malawi.
Women dancing around a new water source, laughing like their joy has never been interrupted.
Their happiness is loud, unfiltered the kind that climbs out of the screen and sits beside you.
It’s jarring to go from watching a mother freeze to watching a village erupt in life.
And then Gaza.
Not a video this time.
A single photo. My favourite from November’s delivery.
A little baby holding a can of formula with both hands.
Looking up at our volunteer with this cautious, half-curious smile…
as if part of him didn’t trust the moment, but his bright, shiny eyes betrayed a tiny hope he couldn’t hide.
It’s the look children get when they’re handed something they desperately needed
but stopped expecting. Relief… mixed with disbelief.
That photo stayed with me. Because in a place swallowed by loss,
that small, shy smile felt like a promise that even here, something gentle is still trying to survive.
And it reminded me:
This work isn’t held together by grand miracles. It’s held together by moments like that child’s eyes.
Moments that whisper: “Please don’t stop.”
And I don’t. Because you don’t.
You are the reason a mother doesn’t give up.
You are the reason a village can celebrate.
You are the reason a baby in Gaza holds a can of formula like it’s safety itself.
Your kindness lives inside these stories more than you realise.
So when I’m watching these videos late at night, when some take the breath out of me
and others give it back.
I think of you.
Your empathy. Your steadiness. Your refusal to turn away.
Thank you for being the thread that holds all these moments together.
The painful, the joyful, and the ones that keep me going.
With everything I’ve seen, and everything your compassion makes possible,
Hafsa