You must not stop at every ‘no’.

“You must not stop at every ‘no’.” The sentence I remembered most from last week.

To which I owe you a blog post, and before that I apologise for not doing so over the weekend.

Last week we didn’t have to go to Brussels or Strasbourg or anywhere. We were able to stay home. If by any chance anyone wonders if it was due to a virus, the answer is no. We had a week called ‘green week’. I would prefer the term ‘field week’ because that is the true meaning of it. I allow myself to be biased about green, as real Jeseničanka (citizen of capital Jesenice).

Joke aside. Already at the beginning of my term in office I decided to use the time as much as possible to be outside among people. Away from offices, halls and rooms, preferably in my home country. And this ‘green week’, which we will have every other month, is basically perfect for that.

My local assistant Jasna and I went to one social welfare institution (Dom na Krasu) and three retirement homes (in Nova Gorica, Celje (Dom ob Savinji) and Radovljica).

But, alas … Because there are not enough days in a week, because sometimes Slovenia is not so small, because I really wanted to take time for each visit and because I had meetings in between, as well as meetings with the LMŠ Initiative and Local Boards (of course, this part of the terrain visits is also important and we are very well aware of it in the party LMŠ) … No more than these few visits I was able to do. But I will absolutely continue with these terrain visits in the near future.

I did not go on field for throwing a bad light on other MEPs, but only because I respect what I have said and because I want to raise the profile of politics. At least a little. Of course, I can’t change the world (unfortunately), but I can do a lot. If I want. And I want to. First of all, at this stage of visits I went to listen to people. Executives, tenants … To show them that I’m here. That I can be – if nothing else – their link wherever it is given. Yes!

Key findings? Each home or institution is its own story. Some are more successful, others are more resourceful … But it is true that they all share a human resources and spatial distress.

I will not go into the details of each home individually or in the assessments of them. It does not seem fair until I visit one more, if not most, of them. However, I must add that the ones I visited are, in my opinion, among the better ones.

What I have learned? Sometimes very little is needed. One reversed sentence in the proposals for European funding. One “you must not stop at every no”. One “yes”. One “how are you” … one “you are not alone”.