Meet the team! Colleague Cara in the spotlight
06-06-2023 | 08:00 Hour
Cara co-organises the Refugee Walk, the annual symbolic walk where sympathisers walk 20 or 40 kilometres and raise money for it. The last edition, which took place on 25 September 2022, was already a success with some 1,600 walkers and more than 330,000 euros raised.
"The day itself is always so nice, surrounded by many enthusiastic participants, volunteers and colleagues with good music, good food and interesting stories to go with it," he said.
"My main task within Vluchtelingenwerk is organising the Refugee Walk. Because of my maternity leave, in the past year I mainly pulled the preparatory phase, such as starting up new ideas, finding a location and thus laying the building blocks earlier. I was back just in time to experience the last and most hectic month just before the event. It was a spicy return, but at the same time it felt really good to still help with those last finishing touches and of course still attend the Refugee Walk itself."
What was your biggest motivation to join Vluchtelingenwerk?
"I always wanted a job with impact. So organising the Refugee Walk provided me with the ideal combination between job content on the one hand and creating impact on the other. The opportunity to engage people to do something practical where they clearly demonstrate their values and standards gives me enormous energy. You see and feel the drive in every stepping stone. Especially in times when it becomes increasingly difficult to show where you stand as a person and what you strive for, the Refugee Walk offers the opportunity to push yourself to take action and, in the process, open up and engage your network."
What are your goals towards the future for your work at Refugee Walk?
"One of the big goals is to grow the Refugee Walk even more anyway. There are still many different avenues to motivate more walkers, but also to make the event even much more powerful and put it on screen. This by, for example, emphasising the activist side by bringing out the power of the participants more and highlighting their drive, motivation and stories."
"There are also many areas of fundraising that remain untapped, both for the Refugee Walk an sich, and for Vluchtelingenwerk. There is still a lot to explore towards the future!"
The counters are reset to zero. From now on you can create your team again, convince your friends to join you on this amazing day, and start raising money for all the great projects at Vluchtelingenwerk Vlaanderen. 
