Today I want to start this update with a celebration.

🎓 12 women graduated from our Personal Leadership Training, called in the Inner Peace Journey

Twelve Afghan women—living across Afghanistan, Pakistan, Germany, the Netherlands, and Brazil—have completed our Personal Leadership Training under conditions most of us can barely imagine.

Some joined from Afghanistan with power cuts and unstable internet. Others joined from Pakistan under constant fear of arrest and deportation, while also carrying the daily weight of health issues, family responsibilities, and children. And those already in safety kept showing up too. Because they’re not only trying to survive. They’re building themselves into leaders.

What this training actually includes:

• Emotional intelligence foundations: noticing emotions early, naming them, and responding instead of reacting
• Nervous system regulation: grounding, breathing, working with panic and hypervigilance
• Values-based personal leadership: clarity, courage, consistency, dignity
• Boundaries + communication: safer ways to say no, ask clearly, and de-escalate conflict
• Peer leadership: supporting each other without collapsing under the weight

They earned certificates by completing the process, not just “attending.” In the coming days, I’ll share the certificates and a short story about each graduate on my Instagram account in the coming days: https://www.instagram.com/nadja.muller.heart/

🇧🇷 One more human rights defender arrived safely in Brazil (with her 3 children)

Another huge milestone: one of our human rights defenders and her three children have arrived safely in Brazil.

Her journey was extremely close to failing in transit through Turkey. She was stopped and grounded, and for a terrifying period she was told by the immigration police she might be forced onto a plane back to Kabul. That kind of fear is not abstract. It’s the body believing it’s about to be handed back to the people who are hunting you.

She made it through. She is safe now. But the psychological cost of that journey is real, and rebuilding stability takes time and support.

🇫🇷 A door that looked open is blocked (for now)

In my last update, I shared hopeful news about a human rights defender and her 2 children expected to travel to France. That travel has not happened.

Her exit permit is being blocked, which means she cannot leave Pakistan. So she remains in an unstable situation. Still navigating fear, uncertainty, and the daily logistics of staying safe.

This is one of the hardest parts of the work: sometimes we are right at the edge of safety, and bureaucracy—or interference—slams the door.

🩺 Medical updates: one safe birth, and another high-risk delivery approaching

✅ Mareefa delivered safely — baby born Friday, Dec 12
This is a real, real celebration: Mareefa gave birth by caesarean section on Friday, December 12, in a well-equipped hospital in Pakistan. Mother and baby Naheed are doing well. Please join me to congratulate the Jasoor family !!!

In Mareefa’s own words, she had been terrified her baby might be born in migrant detention (Haji camp) in Pakistan or behind the bars of a Taliban prison. Instead, her daughter was born in safe, hygienic conditions.

She asked me to share her gratitude: especially to Dr. Yama Shahab and Zohra Shahab, who supported her closely through this period, to you who donated for the medical care of this group, and to everyone who stood with her when fear was at its highest. She wrote that the messages of care were “like healing balm” during a time of physical and psychological strain. 

She also wrote:

“Through your actions, you affirmed the famous verse of Saadi Shirazi which says: Human beings are members of a whole, In creation of one essence and soul. If one member is afflicted with pain, Other members uneasy will remain. If you are indifferent to the suffering of others, You do not deserve to be called human.”

https://youtube.com/shorts/UKEimoEqHEQ

⚠️ Another mother: caesarean expected in the coming days  and urgent coordination needed now

We also have another high-risk situation approaching, and I’m sharing this one week in advance because coordination matters.

Another becoming mother has informed us—based on her doctor’s advice—that her caesarean section is expected in the coming days. Because her pregnancy is medically complex (gestational diabetes, hypertension, pituitary adenoma, and lumbar disc bulge), her doctors have recommended the procedure be done in a well-equipped hospital in Islamabad with specialized care and continuous monitoring.

She has respectfully requested support for:

• Transfer from the safe house to Islamabad at least one week prior to surgery
• Time and safety for pre-operative assessments and preparations
• Continued coordination based on her most recent ultrasound report (done one week ago)

This is exactly the kind of moment where your support becomes the difference between panic and safety, between delays and timely care.

If you can, please give whatever is possible. Even €5 or €10 helps us respond to the emergencies that come in daily.

💸 Donation Details
 HeartWork Stichting – https://heartwork.earth/peacework

⚠️ Ongoing: arrests, trauma, and daily survival under police pressure

We are still in the danger zone.

• We had another arrest of one of our prominent human rights defenders (a leader in the movement). With support from another organization, she was released from Haji camp, but the experience has left a deep imprint on her children, her family and herself.
• We have another high-risk pregnancy coming up. We will need support to keep the family safe and housed while we prepare for a safe delivery and to respond fast if complications arise.
• The day-to-day reality remains brutal: police checks, families staying silent in their apartments, children unable to play or even move freely, people afraid to come home if police are outside.

This is what your support is doing right now: it is buying time and safety in a situation that offers neither.

What we need from you right now

Donate (or donate again if you can): safe housing, food, medical care, and continued leadership training against all odds
Share the petition: public pressure is part of protection.
Stay engaged: attention prevents people from disappearing into silence.

We keep going because these women keep going.