To mark its 30th anniversary, Stëmm vun der Strooss ('Voice of the Street') invited beneficiaries, staff, volunteers, and partners in Hollerich to a large summer festival. For one day, the focus was not on everyday worries but on community and joy.
It is an anniversary that traces not only the history of an association, but above all that of the people who find help, support, and a listening ear there every day. For three decades, Stëmm vun der Strooss has been working for socially disadvantaged people.
For Alexandra Oxacelay, director of the association, it is the people that come first. Oxacelay said she would rather not have to celebrate at all, in an ideal world where the need had simply gone away.
She started at Stëmm in 1998, meaning she has been part of the association for 28 years. When she began, she was on her own, and she gradually built up the team, without whom she said she would be nothing
What makes people happy, she added, is being taken out of their everyday lives. These people, she insisted, are part of society, and society has to look after them and give them their rightful place.
At the site in Hollerich, the daily troubles were, for a few hours at least, largely out of view. Around 650 beneficiaries, staff, and volunteers came together under a large marquee to eat, dance, and laugh.
Concerts, games, stalls handing out clothes and food, and the many activities laid on by partner organisations gave people the chance to meet, to have fun, and to leave everyday life behind for a while. What such a festival really means to them was best described by the beneficiaries themselves.
One spoke of variety, recognition, and solidarity, saying people leave with something in hand and with fresh perspectives, and were thankful the event existed at all. Another summed things up simply as "Oh Happy Day, Happy Day", noting that people were happy to get things for free.
A third said they were very satisfied, well received, and well fed, with plenty of interesting stalls and games making for a good time. Yet another recalled having spent five years on the streets, saying they now had a flat, but that without Stëmm vun der Strooss they would no longer be around.
A final voice called the day magnificent, describing it as a better life for everyone, with beautiful music – "paradise" even.
Needs, meanwhile, have changed considerably in recent years. Alongside people without a permanent roof over their heads, more and more people who cannot make ends meet despite holding down a job are turning to the association for help.
The high cost of living is pushing increasing numbers into precarious situations. At the same time, solidarity within society is growing too, Oxacelay said.
She noted that there are also many more people in need today. 28 years ago, she said, they were mostly to be seen around the train station, and there were only a few of them, familiar faces for the most part.
Now the association is dealing with plenty of working poor, migrants, and foreign residents. Society, too, is beginning to shift, with more and more people offering support.
There were over 100 volunteers lending a hand, while singer Serge Tonnar came along to perform.
Solidarity, Oxacelay said, had changed, and that felt good.
After 30 years, the goal of Stëmm vun der Strooss remains the same, namely not to reduce people to their precarious circumstances, but to listen to them, offer them perspectives and give them a place in society.
The association also wants to keep going with more than just direct help in future, raising awareness at the same time of poverty and social exclusion in Luxembourg.
