I am 64 years old, retired and live in Hildesheim. I have always been outdoors a lot and now I meet many more parents with their children there. This is certainly also due to the increased time they spend together. I find it a very positive aspect that they spend this time together outdoors in nature. I myself meet my friends much more often only outdoors in nature for walks or short hikes, and I have now noticed that completely different topics have come up, that we are also more intensively involved with each other and get to know each other anew and discover other sides of us. That is a very exciting thing.

Hi, I'm Rita, I'm 30 years old from Portugal. I've been in quarantine for 54 days. Today in Portugal is Mother's Day the 3rd of May. And maybe motherhood has been one of the fundamental aspects, of the few positives, in this COVID-19 pandemic. These last two months have allowed me to strengthen the relationship with my daughter. She is only 2 years old, there is a lot she does not notice. But it's great to spend a little more time with her. On the other hand, I am also always heartbroken because I often want to give her the attention she deserves, that she needs because she is without her friends, without school, without all the activities. And I'm working remotely. In other words, my heart is divided between keeping myself productive and being the best mother possible under these circumstances. But anyway and despite this demand for time and attention, this difficulty in managing everything. It's been great to be able to enjoy a few little moments that weren't possible before. Waking her up every day from her nap, putting her to bed. Despite some tantrums in the mix... But it's been very nice to see how she's evolved over the last two months. How we're creating a little human being and seeing a new discovery everyday. In the old days I couldn't have these little moments because I left her in kindergarten and picked her up too late. And that's the only positive thing I can see in this, despite other things, but the one that really touches me the most is motherhood. And to feel that this has strengthened my relationship with the little one. She won't remember any of this, and that's good, but to me these moments feel good.

Hello everyone! My name is Elisa, and in the past days I set my attention on a term that I would like to elaborate on to answer the question about the opportunities that we could draw for our future. The term is "anti-fragile". "Anti-fragile" is a neologism that was coined by Nassim Taleb and indicates a person who acts opposite as to a fragile person. A frail person in a situation of tension and stress becomes demoralized and does not react. On the contrary, instead, an antifragile person, under pressure and when circumstances do not go as planned, not only does she or he face the situation, but rather improves performance. So why did I want to start from this concept? Because we all know that this is a very difficult situation and that scares us from many points of view. But this does not mean that we must break down or lose trust. The covid emergency is inviting us to reflect, reflect on our limits, I am not talking about the personal limits of each, but I mean the limits of humans. It is inviting us to review, to redesign our priorities, not only in a personal level but also on a global level. We have seen how nature is recovering, making us understand how human action can sometimes be deleterious. And so maybe this is a wake-up call that arrived just in time to make us change direction. And it is we, who must seize it to ensure that it is not all in vain in the end. I do not want to dig too far into this topic which is quite complicated, but will speak a little more on a personal level. I realize that I have been rediscovering creativity, I had fun taking pictures in corners of the house that I never thought of photographing because I didn't find anything interesting in then. I observed the same angle of the house at different times of the day fascinated by the play of light that the sun creates at different times. So, somehow my vision has changed, my attention to detail has intensified and now even the most insignificant details attract my mind. And these things that were before my eyes, have always escaped me, on the one hand because I was too busy trying to meet a deadline, on the other one, because I went to look for beauty outside the home. But all these things I am saying are important to keep being mentally strong. Because to fight this virus it is not necessary to be only physically strong, obviously we have to exercise, but we must also read a book, listen to music or play. Keeping your mind active, keeping creativity and inventiveness active. So let's take advantage of this moment to enrich ourselves even more, to become stronger psychologically, to learn how to behave as anti-fragile people.

Hey everyone my name is Emily. I live in Toronto I have been social distancing for about a month now. As I think many other people have. I see COVID-19 as an opportunity in many ways. First, for those who live a very fast-paced life I think they get to slow down a bit and really feel the present. I think it is great for anyone who is looking to reinvent themselves and maybe to consider a different path or figure out what truly makes them happy. I also think it is great for consumerism. I think we need to remember that we don't always need to be consuming things and that we can just let ourselves be with our families and make things at home etc. I think this is really great for the environment. I'm very excited to see what the results are of this sort of thing on the environment.

I think the positive thing in all of this situation is that there are news of animals taking over the cities and just watching nature taking the space that we took away from it. I think it is a very good moment to realise how small changes in our behaviours can actually have a great impact. I think it is so useful to see results if everybody does small changes in their behaviour. This is something that cannot be done just by some individuals, it has to be done by everybody. So, I think that is the positive side… I mean, there are dolphins in Venice! I would have never imagined so. I lived there and I still remember the smell and the colour of the brownish water in Venice and that was like two years ago and I would have never imagined seeing purer water in the channel. So… Yeah, I guess that is it.

I'm Sinda, I live in Paris and I'm almost 34 years old. I am living in Paris and have been in confinement for more than six weeks now due to Covid-19. Today I am drawing negative but also positive points from this situation. The negative points are above all on the moral level, the anxiety that one can feel to be confined, the deaths which are also unfortunately counted every day throughout the country and the world.   But next to that, there is also the commitment of some citizens, the impact on social networks, the virtual world, our adaptation too, which is quite developed. Humans adapt quite quickly to new situations.  The opportunity that can be drawn from this, whether for oneself or for the community - is to ask oneself the right questions. And one of the questions is: do we want to live and return to a so-called "normal" life, knowing that it may not have been normal for us and for other societies? What do we want for our future, what do we want for the generations to come? Do we want to continue on this path at the economic level, at the political level, at the human level? It is difficult to answer all these questions in a very short period of time, but these are the questions we ask ourselves as citizens, as individuals. And I think that in community, all together, we will find the answers. I wish good courage to all those who are confined, and thank you for listening.

Every crisis has something positive in itself because it forces us to ask questions that we probably did not ask before. And only by formulating new questions we can obtain new answers and grow as citizens, as a world, as human beings. So this would be the first great opportunity that comes from a crisis. And this is no exception, this pandemic that we are experiencing. On the other hand, this health crisis makes us realise that we are not so different from each other. Yes, we are different by culture, by social class, by opportunities, on many occasions, unfortunately, different. But in this case of health, in this specific case of the pandemic, we are not different from each other, we are equally weak. We are equally vulnerable. Because we are obsolete, because we are finite, because we are human. And the pandemic does not choose this or that group of people. We are equally vulnerable and therefore we have much more in common than aspects that can differentiate us from each other. Secondly, this pandemic makes us realise the importance of time. Time is something limited and that we cannot buy. And we live in a world where we waste too much time. Or rather, in which we do not enjoy it as it deserves. Life is a gift to be lived, to be used and we waste too much time. On the other hand, another opportunity that we can see in this pandemic is the willingness to discover others as an opportunity in itself. We live too much in our indifference, in our selfishness, in our interests, ideas and goals. Others will be part of our lives and now we miss them. Then, let this pandemic help us long for each other and thus build a different world, more human, more of God certainly.

I am quite a pessimistic person, and I have not believed in the possibility of change in the socio-economic system in which we live for a long time and when the pandemic started and many people saw in it an opportunity for this change, I saw it as very dark. Mainly because many economic alternatives that I knew and that I saw, such as organic stores, small cooperatives were very affected by the pandemic. And that did not happen with the big supermarkets, the big chains, which are the ones that now sell the most, because people cannot move to support their cooperatives, their small stores, in another neighborhood. I think that from this pandemic the big companies are going to come out much stronger, while small businesses, as well as some economic and social movements that have already started to emerge in recent years, will be much more affected.  On the other hand, many people also tell me that during this pandemic more and more people realize the need to produce their own food, that many people no longer know if in two or three months they will be able to buy food in the supermarket, because there are also countries that have already closed the borders to export their own food production, so suddenly we live in a system where countries really keep their food within their borders. We have to produce our own food. So there are many possibilities, opportunities, but I still think that as soon as the pandemic ends we will return to the same system as before, except that it will be much worse because there will be fewer jobs, which means that people will work in even more vulnerable conditions, worse conditions, and that will greatly harm people in many of the sectors.

Hello everyone! I'm Marco, from Rome. And I also wanted to share my experience and my impressions on this quarantine life that we are all facing and I will try to give a maybe different and positive perspective, because it is the only way in which we must try to take events in general, especially when events are so big, so out of our control. I think the only thing we should do is simply accept what is going on and stop, to reflect because such this occasion that forces us to stop our hectic activity and stay a moment at home, and live a sense of time as it once was, I think it is an occasion we have now and we might not have in the future. Therefore, both as individuals, in our private life everyone will surely have something to think about, but also as a collective, even more important, as a collective such a moment gives us a chance to make a change, to unite, to come to new conclusions and to start again in a new direction, better than the one we were headed towards in recent years, which according to me, was not positive at all, and it would not have led us to anything good, considering the climate crisis and the political scenario we have. And therefore this epidemic, on the one hand, is certainly a misfortune, for the suffering it creates and the economic damages, but on the other, it can also be seen as a more unique than rare opportunity to stop for a moment, reflect and change course. Because the moment has arrived in my opinion. And I don't think we will be given another opportunity to start again and to reflect on what we are doing, on our lifestyle, on our way of interacting and behaving. So in addition to trying to relax, to be quiet, to work for those who can, in these days, a very important thing is that you try to ask questions, then everyone will bring his own, but in short, this time may not be lost time, it may not be in vain, and it is worth trying it also because we have the responsibility to do it from my point of view. so I would like to encourage those who listen to this message to try and think what they can do in their own small way, when this thing will end up, and try improving something, no? Okay, I will stop moralizing here and I greet you all, have a good day and a good quarantine.

I see many positive aspects in the current corona crisis. One of them is that you can refocus on yourself and on the activities that you really like to do and that you don't necessarily have the time to do in everyday life. Because we work, because we have studies, because we have a family. Right now, personally and with my friends, we are doing many things that are important to us, and that feels really good. I'm getting back into art a lot, drawing, listening to a lot of music, reading, learning about the world, and that's something I haven't done in months. You can also take care of yourself, do sports, whether it's outdoors or at home. In terms of the opportunities you could create, there are a lot of things that were there before and that are even more present now. In France, for example, the NGO French Popular Relief is very present. And new things are being set up, more recently. For example the "Brigades Solidaires Populaires". This is a project that is currently European, and which may be extended to other countries, which brings together volunteers to help people in precarious situations. I think that all together, and for the most motivated people, we realize that the world is going bad. The corona crisis can recreate a circle of solidarity for those who need it, which unfortunately was sometimes a little abandoned or not our priority. At the moment I think that many people realize how important this is and how much solidarity is the core of human values.