We are back with the newest article and shared stories from part of our crew!
Humus is a 3-year Volunteering Teams project in High Priority Areas, aimed at creating more resilient communities fostering a healthy lifestyle and collective action on climate change as well as nurturing a sense of community to foster social inclusion, mobilizing young volunteers and enhancing civic and community engagement in local contexts.
Humus – Co-creating a Festival for imagining Queer Futures, is one of the volunteering teams activities that took place in Riga Latvia in September 2025 and was hosted and organized by our organization.
The project involved 15 volunteers from European countries – Latvia, Greece, Italy, Spain, Sweden, Moldova, Azerbaijan, Germany and a team of 5 professionals in youth work, Queer education and activism, mentorship, and more, who are experienced in the different methods and tools that were used during the project, in the process of co-creating the festival and organizing this volunteering opportunity.
The main focus of the project was the co-creation of Radical Imagination of Our Time!, a queer performing arts festival made by queer people for queer community and allies. Volunteer team members owned their experience in a month filled with creativity, self and collective expression, queer and trans joy, variety of organizational tasks, creating audio-visual content, rehearsing, exchanging stories and experiences, engaging with the local communities, performing, learning, unlearning, holding space for magic to happen and so much more!
Enjoy the reflections and learning takeaways from part of our crew!
In a time where most news anchors turn their cameras to violence and oppression, the HUMUS project was a nice escape yet confrontation with the reality we live in.
For me the project provided a space to explore my own capacity: my wants, needs, ways and skillset. It created a fun and safe place to connect with people, on all levels, and to learn about my peers, the world, and (for me) new perspectives on learning, work and reality.
That safeness did not come without its own challenges, though. To create outside the bounds of societal norms, to work for your and your colleagues’ well-being when you are used to working for a product, can unsettle both yourself and the world around you. However, when most cameras are turned toward oppression, I believe we need to challenge ourselves into imagining freedom every now and then. I think we often confuse this with denial (I know I do), but in reality I believe it reminds us what hope feels like, and where we want to go.
So, if there is anything I take away from this project, it is that it truly is a radical act to imagine with joy.
What I always try to find among queer spaces is the sense of safety, boldness and togetherness.
Humus for me, not only offered me that, but became a personal journey of exploration, a journey I could share with other members from the queer community. I feel that throughout this project I have challenged myself in the most creative ways, I collaborated with extremely skilled and fun people, I danced, I laughed, I cried from joy and love and most importantly I felt supported and valued.
I would honestly recommend this type of experience to anyone, specifically within the queer community, who wants to experiment and work together with other queers, who wants to create and express themselves through art and contribute in building a braver community.
Humus was a very needed project for me because it helped me reconnect with the reasons why I want to create and keep exploring creatively.
It was a great reminder of the infinite possibilities that exist when making art, and of how our creations can also emerge from joy and celebration.
I really appreciate having a space that invited me to imagine how Queer futures could look like and what that even means for each of us, having the time and space to share and learn from each other’s experiences and ideas, which we then combined to create our own festival to celebrate our work, our stories, our community and the futures we aim to build.
The experience was really enriching. I liked not having expectations and being able to live the experience in a pure way, without any conditions.
I felt very welcomed at all times; the people in the space were really kind, and I felt completely comfortable being myself and meeting new people.
Spending so much time with a group of people you get to know allows you to connect very deeply with others, and that is really beautiful seeing how you can learn from connections and relationships!
I know that everyone who was at Humus was there for a reason, and I think we will always remember the wonderful group we formed.
It was something motivational, hopeful, something shaped with kindness and care.
It reminded me what I always believed but sometimes felt less hopeful about – with empathy, being kind and careful with each other, shortly trying to built safe space equally for everyone, we still can create something cool, successful because sharing these feelings are already success.
What we did, and what you do is important, a lot hopeful. And I have a lot gratitude for it!
You can find more information about the festival and its programme in this link https://riotfestival.carrd.co/#