There are Saturdays when you stand in the cold and wonder if anyone notices. There are Saturdays when the wind bites through your gloves and the traffic rushes past without slowing down. And then there are Saturdays like today — Saturdays that remind you, with absolute clarity, why you have never missed a single one.
Today, at 3:00 PM near Kamloops City Hall, something extraordinary happened. People who have been gathering every Saturday since February 24, 2022, to Stand with Ukraine were joined by people standing with Iran. Two communities. Two flags. Two languages of grief and defiance. One shared conviction: that the struggle for human dignity is indivisible, and that care knows no borders.
It was powerful. It was moving. It was the kind of moment that makes nearly four years of unbroken weekly gatherings — through snow, through rain, through wildfire smoke, through days when it felt like the world had moved on — feel not only worthwhile but necessary. Because when you build something with consistency and love, eventually it becomes a place where others can find shelter too.
A Week That Changed Everything
Last week, I published an article titled “Standing With Iran as We Stand With Ukraine: Care is Universal.” I wrote it because I could not stay silent. The reports coming out of Iran were — and remain — staggering. As many as 30,000 people may have been killed on January 8 and 9 alone, according to senior officials within Iran’s own Ministry of Health who spoke to TIME (Serjoie et al., 2026). More than 400 cities saw protests. More than 40,000 people have been arrested. The internet was severed. Families were cut off from one another. A surgeon in Tehran described operating through the night on patients shot with war bullets by their own government, watching blood pool in the gutters of streets where people had been marching peacefully just hours before.
As someone who left Ukraine in 2004, who watched the Orange Revolution unfold, who became a Canadian citizen in 2013 only to witness Russia’s invasion of my homeland in 2014 and the full-scale war that began in 2022 — I recognized everything in those reports. The language of authoritarian violence is the same whether it is spoken in Russian or in Farsi. The grief of families separated by war and repression sounds the same in Ukrainian and in Persian. The courage of people who take to the streets knowing they may not come home — that courage is universal.
And so I wrote that article, and I extended an open invitation: to the Iranian community in Kamloops, across British Columbia, and across Canada — come stand with us. There is room. There has always been room. Solidarity is not a limited resource.
The Ripple Effect: Mukwa Mussayet and the Power of Sharing
What happened next is a testament to how community actually works — not through grand gestures from positions of power, but through individuals who care deeply and act on that care without hesitation.
Mukwa Mussayet shared my article with her students.
I want to pause on that, because it matters more than it might appear on the surface. When an educator shares a piece of writing with their students, they are doing far more than distributing a reading assignment. They are saying: this matters. Pay attention to this. Let this change the way you see the world. They are building bridges between communities that might never otherwise meet — connecting the struggle of Ukrainians with the struggle of Iranians, connecting Indigenous perspectives on solidarity and resistance with the lived experiences of diaspora communities, connecting the classroom to the street corner where people gather every Saturday at 3:00 PM because they refuse to look away.
Mukwa Musayett, thank you. Thank you for your care. Thank you for your activism. Thank you for your unwavering solidarity — not just with Ukraine, not just with Iran, but with the principle that when one community suffers, we all have a responsibility to respond. Thank you for recognizing that these struggles are connected, and for helping your students see those connections too. The work you do — in your classroom, in your community, in the quiet and consistent ways you show up — is the very foundation of social change. It is the kind of work that does not always make headlines but always makes a difference.
This is how movements grow. Not through a single dramatic moment, but through a thousand small acts of sharing, of showing up, of saying to someone in pain: I see you. I hear you. You are not alone.
Today: A Saturday Like No Other
When I arrived at City Hall today, I was not sure what to expect. Nearly four years of weekly gatherings have taught me that hope and uncertainty always walk together. Some Saturdays, there are many of us. Some Saturdays, there are few. Every Saturday, it matters.
But today — today the circle was wider. Today there were faces I had not seen before. Today, the blue and yellow of Ukraine stood alongside the green, white, and red of Iran. Today, conversations happened between people who had never spoken to one another, people whose histories and languages and journeys to Kamloops are vastly different but whose understanding of what it means to fight for freedom is exactly the same.
I watched people introduce themselves. I watched people share stories. I watched people stand in silence together — because sometimes solidarity does not require words. Sometimes the most powerful thing you can do is simply be present, shoulder to shoulder, in a public space, refusing to let the world forget.
This is what we have been building for nearly four years. Not just a gathering to stand in solidarity with Ukraine, but a practice of solidarity — a living, breathing demonstration that ordinary people in a small city in the interior of British Columbia can choose, week after week, to bear witness to injustice happening thousands of kilometres away. And now that practice has expanded to embrace another community in crisis, another people crying out for freedom, another struggle that demands our attention and our compassion.
Tomorrow: A Special Gathering for Iran
The momentum continues. Tomorrow, Sunday, February 1, at 12:00 PM near the Law Courts in Kamloops, there will be a special Stand with Iran gathering. All are welcome. You do not need to be Iranian. You do not need to be Ukrainian. You do not need to be an expert on geopolitics or human rights law. You simply need to care.
Bring yourself. Bring your family. Bring a friend who has never attended a gathering before. Bring a sign if you wish, or simply bring your presence. In a world that often tells us that our individual actions do not matter, showing up is a radical act. Standing in public space and declaring that you see what is happening and that you will not look away — that is resistance. That is solidarity. That is love in action.
For members of the Iranian community in Kamloops and across the region: we see you. We know that many of you are living through an agonizing time — watching your homeland in flames, unable to reach family members through the internet blackout, carrying grief and fear and rage that most people around you cannot fully understand. Please know that you are not alone. This community — this imperfect, persistent, stubborn little community that has been gathering every Saturday for nearly four years — has room for you. It has always had room for you.
Connecting Communities: Why This Matters
In social work education, we teach students about the interconnectedness of oppression and the interconnectedness of liberation. We teach that injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere — not as an abstract principle, but as a lived reality that shapes how we build community and how we respond to crisis.
The connection between Ukraine and Iran is not a stretch. It is not a metaphor. It is direct and concrete. Both nations face authoritarian regimes that use overwhelming military force against civilian populations. Both peoples have taken to the streets in acts of extraordinary courage, knowing the risks. Both struggles have been met with internet blackouts designed to isolate protesters from the world and from each other. Both communities in the diaspora carry the particular anguish of watching from afar, unable to protect the people they love.
And both communities deserve sustained global attention — not just in the first days of crisis when the headlines are fresh, but in the weeks and months and years that follow, when the cameras turn away and the world moves on to the next story.
This is what our Saturday gatherings have always been about. We did not stop standing with Ukraine when the headlines faded. We will not stop standing with Iran either.
The 40-Day Tradition and What Lies Ahead
In Iranian tradition, memorial services are held 40 days after death. Around February 17, the country may see renewed demonstrations as families gather to mourn those killed in the January massacres. History has shown that these mourning gatherings often become new catalysts for protest, new flashpoints of courage and repression.
We must be ready. We must be paying attention. We must be prepared to stand with the Iranian people not just today and tomorrow, but in the weeks and months ahead, through whatever comes next.
For our Ukrainian community, this is familiar territory. We know what it means to sustain advocacy over years, not days. We know what it means to keep showing up when the world’s attention has moved elsewhere. We know the particular exhaustion — and the particular strength — that comes from refusing to let your people be forgotten.
Now we share that knowledge, that practice, that endurance with our Iranian neighbours. And in doing so, we become stronger together.
A Thank You and an Invitation
To everyone who stood with us today — thank you. To Mukwa Mussayet, whose act of sharing my article with her students set in motion connections that will continue to ripple outward — thank you. To every person who has ever stopped at our Saturday gathering, even for a moment, even just to read a sign or nod in acknowledgment — thank you.
To those who have not yet joined us: the invitation is open. It is always open.
Saturday gatherings — Stand with Ukraine (and now Iran) 📍 Near Kamloops City Hall 🕐 Every Saturday at 3:00 PM
Special Stand with Iran gathering 📍 Near the Law Courts, Kamloops 🕐 Sunday, February 1 at 12:00 PM All are welcome.
Care is universal. Solidarity is not a finite resource. When we stand for one people’s freedom, we stand for all.
Слава Україні. آزادی برای ایران. Glory to Ukraine. Freedom for Iran.
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