At the end of 2010 we were heading for our first Inspire2Live Congress on the premisses of the Royal Academy of Arts and Sciences in Amsterdam. In the two weeks before Christmas I made a final dash to New York, Cold Spring Harbour and Boston.

This was our 2020 Christmas Holiday. Despite the lock downs in many places, I want to dream. Let me start with Martin Luther King. He had a dream, with implications as pertinent as ever.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed:

We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood. I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice and sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice. I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today…”

I too have a dream, a dream for the next 10 years of Inspire2Live. I will not speak poetically. I want a solid solidarity-based base package cancer care for all cancer patients in the world.

Big dreams start small. Inspire2Live has created a World Campus that is growing and shows its value day after day: in Brazil, Armenia, Egypt, The Netherlands, China, et cetera. We have just started, but let us dream on.

Dream 1: The World campus App for the hubs. Let me call our App “Woca”.

Dream 2: Woca for patients within the reach of Inspire2Live, tapping the resources that it engenders.

Dream 3: Dvelopment of basic services on Woca, piece by piece, a process similar to the way, we have created the hubs.

Dream 4: Integration of services into a base package cancer care, with solidarity funding.

Dream 5: Scale the services up to include as many patients as possible from all corners of the world.

It is a huge challenge. But what we have learned in times of Covid is that the pandemic hits hardest those who are least protected and most vulnerable to disruption. We want to rise up to live out the true meaning of our creed. Covid changed our mindset. Everyone is but 1.5 meters away! There still is an Internet with a capital “I”. With scalable services, with membership solidarity, where reciprocity reigns.

You’re a good soldier, choosing your battles

Pick yourself up and dust yourself off, get back in the saddle

You’re on the front line, everyone’s watching

You know it’s serious, we’re getting closer, this isn’t over

 (Shakira, 2010, Waka waka eh eh)

Jan Gerrit Schuurman
Patient Advocate Inspire2Live