Navigating the storm, together - Newsletter 2020/2

Guest Editor Silvia Randazzo's introduction to the thematic issue of the EFRJ Newsletter showcasing experiences of the Covid-19 crisis from around the Globe through a restorative lens. 

Claudia Mazzucato's testimonial from Lombardy, Italy, one of the regions of the world most hit by Covid-19. She takes us through the harm experienced by herself and people around her, towards the proposition of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission in response to this tragedy.

Lucille Rivin presents the challenges experienced in New York, one of the epicentres of the pandemic and brings our attention to the initiatives of RJ activated in these months and addressing children and communities. 

Arti Mohan, from New Delhi, takes us through the social injustices exacerbated by the sanitary crisis in India and the hope that restorative spaces and collective responses and responsibility can bring. 

Xiaoyu Yuan and Xiaoye Zhang bring our attention to some of the effects of the pandemic in China, from a very much neglected perspective, the one of prisons, and particularly prisons’ staff. 

Juan José de Lanuza Torres, from Madrid, emphasises the crucial role that restorative justice practices could and should play especially in such a moment of crisis in Spain, where traditional justice finds itself too rigid and stuck by the crisis.

Paola Nicolini from Italy, offers some profound reflections about the serious risks that come with the spread of the expression ‘social distancing’ and to the particular care and attention that now, possibly more than ever before, we should take one for the other.

Maartje Berger gives a thorough picture of how the pandemic and the responses to it have tremendously impacted children and young people in the Netherlands, calls for their active involvement and the building of effective responses together with them.

Belinda Hopkins shares with us her personal experience of lockdown, offering thoughtful insights from her confinement on launching interesting restorative initiatives in schools.

Nessa Lynch and Stephen Woodwark illustrate how even the case of New Zealand, one of the most successful cases of management of the pandemic (or possibly the most successful), does not come without a great number of inequalities and human rights challenges.