Casa de respiro

Who are you, and how are you involved with La Casa de Respiro (the Deep Breath House)? (0:18)
Why the name ‘Casa de Respiro’? (1:12)
I see Casa is a project by defenred (literally ‘ActivistNetwork’). What is defenred? (1:42)
The description of the project says “The nature of the work of human rights activists in many of the world’s countries forces activists to face very stressful situations, including threats or direct risk for their lives or the lives of their loved ones. When this situation is sustained over a long period of time, it can have consequences on the activist’s physical and psychic health. The health and well-being of human rights activists can often be found to be affected, and this is an area in which they should find more support.” How did you come up with this idea? Who developed it into a functioning project? Can you talk to us about the origin of the project? (2:57)
Are you a collective, an association? What legal structure have you chosen to register this project as? (6:50)
Are there salaried people working in Casa? (8:48)
What does it mean to work, or how does the concept of work change in the context of Casa de Respiro? (9:31)
How do you sustain this kind of project? Do you get Institutional support of some kind? What kind of relationship do you have with the Institutions? (13:08)
How many members are there? (14:46)
For many of the collectives we’re talking with, 15M represented a moment of reorganization, reinvention, and strengthening. Was this moment at all related to the opening of Casa? (15:58)
Casa welcomes people from “A community of human rights activists.” Can you explain what kinds of people end up staying here? What’s the process like for coming here? (17:26)
How much time do people stay at Casa? (19:36)
How do you organize Casa’s internal functioning? (20:22)
The core organizing team is made up of six people. Were these people already friends? (23:08)
On the web, you explain that the people who stay at Casa have the opportunity to travel to Spain, to the north sierra of the community of Madrid, for a period of various weeks, with the objective “to offer a period of rest and breathing that serves for physical and psychological recuperation… we are obviously facing an important labor of care and selfcare. Can you explain what’s meant by care and self-care in this context, and how that work manifests itself? (24:56)
What kind of therapies or support geared toward self-care do you offer these people? (29:49)
Do you have any protocol for preparing for the arrival of this person and to be able to advise them in their self-care? (31:26)
You talk about a “new concept of safety that’s opening pathways with a wider definition, which among other concepts includes well-being as a fundamental variable.” Can you explain this concept of “Safety/Security” from the perspective of Casa de Respiro? (32:11)
On the subject of care-takers, you wrote the following on the web: “What isn’t easy is convincing the activist that self-care and mutual support are elements that should be taken into consideration as fundamental for continuing their work for human rights with a long-term perspective.” Can you explain the reason for this difficulty with the activists? (33:12)
What have you learned from your experience as caretakers? (35:30)
What’s a person’s life like in at Casa de Respiro? (37:08)
Among your objectives, you talk about “generating interactions with Spanish society so that they can explain and bring closer the reality of their community and their work.” This informative activity about the problems that the activists are involved with connects to the environment of informal education. How do you organize this activity? (41:38)
People often talk about the therapeutic value of active listening. Has this been your experience with Casa? (45:53)
Do you think that the defense of human rights is talked about enough in our society? Do you think it’s an unresolved issue? How do you think we can implement the changes necessary in the environment of education? (47:18)
As a society, what would you say are our most important unresolved issues? (50:32)
How does this project keep itself separate from welfare and paternalistic eurocentric proposals? (53:29)
What collectives or projects are you connected with? (54:58)
What references did you consider when creating this project? (57:02)
Would you say that this project is related to a political project? If so, what politics are we talking about? (1:01:01)
“Stories for Taking a Breath” (Relatos para Respirar in the original Spanish) is a book you wrote from the experiences shared by the activists that have visited Casa. Can you tell us a little about how you wrote it and how it’s been broadcast? (1:02:11)
Considering the climate of political discontent and insecurity, can you tell us how you keep up hope? (1:06:10)
From your experience, what do you think keeps the human rights activists going? (1:08:37)
What would growing mean for this project? (1:11:24)