paean will be a care collective aimed at building non-hierarchical communities for education and care internationally, centred around reciprocal trust, respect, understanding, and borderless solidarity. we are based on Wallumedegal land (in so-called sydney, NSW australia), a place that always was, always will be Aboriginal land.
<aside> 🇵🇸 we are dedicated to a free Palestine, from the river to the sea. please refer to Operation Olive Branch for direct action steps.
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i say we “will be” a care collective because, right now, paean is… just me. but we have to start somewhere.
building communities of free association across the globe, beyond borders, beyond hierarchies, may mean placing brick after long, painstaking brick, but each brick is a person, a life, a chance at hope. a moment of believing in something better than what we have.
so, this is me, laying the first brick.
i’m persie (they/it). i’m a student; historian; first-aider; queer, mad cripple; punk, anarchist, and activist; hellenic polytheist, witch, and folk practitioner; and white british-australian. i volunteered as the Better Future Program’s Chief Health Officer from July 2023 until its hiatus in January 2024, during which time i began working on the foundations of paean.
paean is not only inspired by the amazing community i found at BFP, it would not ever have been possible without everything my family there shared with me, without all the love and learning we did together, without the blood and sweat and tears our chosen-family poured into making the world we live in just a little better.
the main goal of paean is to build hope. to cultivate love and community. not despite, but because of the anger and grief and fear of our lived realities.
the first projects that i’m working on include: