A great day, good people, and vegan cake

On 28 June, we celebrated the fourth birthday of Solidarity Collectives. It was a wonderful day full of conversations, new connections, and familiar faces. Over the past four years, a broad community has grown around SolCol: soldiers, volunteers, activists, artists, international comrades, friends, donors, and everyone who shares our values and supports what we do.

The venue was busy throughout the day. Around 400 people joined the celebration, and every discussion filled the room to capacity.

Together with @femsolution_org, we hosted a free market where most of the clothes and items found new owners. Throughout the day, visitors could browse the Solidarity Collectives and @utopia_distro merch corner or join a hands-on soldering workshop led by our drone team.

We also opened a photo exhibition documenting our humanitarian missions, focusing on people affected by the war and the places and communities we’ve visited.

The discussion programme explored international solidarity, anti-authoritarian resistance, and experiences of war. Together with our guests, we spoke about international grassroots support for the Ukrainian resistance, the challenges of this work, and introduced @the_peoples_want — the international network that Solidarity Collectives is part of.

The programme also featured the Ukrainian premiere of the Ukrainian-French documentary The Road to Freedom, followed by a discussion with its director, Pierre Chameshod.

We wrapped up the talks with a panel featuring anti-authoritarian soldiers, Is There Room for Anti-Authoritarian Practices in the Military?, discussing military hierarchy, self-organisation, horizontal organising, and political agency during wartime.

We ended the day with a delicious vegan cake by @your.vegan.bestie, a live set from the improvisational glitch jazz project @embrion_bormana, and a DJ set by @kate_lizzerd.

Huge thanks as well to @iriyrecords for providing the concert