Before Me Came Thousands
- Jun 15
- 3 min read
Updated: Aug 2
When we began designing a collection for Keti Koti, one word kept finding its way back into every conversation: freedom.
Freedom is often treated as something that simply exists. Something we naturally possess. But through our conversations with the young people, we realised that freedom never appears out of nowhere. Behind every form of freedom are people who made sacrifices. People who stood against injustice. People who left their homes behind. People who kept going so that the generation after them could have opportunities they never had themselves.
Freedom is never the work of one person. It is built, fought for and passed on.
The People Who Came Before Us
During the workshops, young people from the asylum seekers’ centre gathered around the same table. Their stories were different. Some had fled war. Others had left behind family, friends, language or everything that once felt familiar. Still, they all recognised the same truth:
None of us arrived here alone.
Before each of us came thousands.
Thousands who fought for dignity. Thousands who made impossible choices for their children. Thousands who crossed borders, survived oppression, started again or continued to believe in a life where the generations after them could be freer.
The freedom we live in today was shaped by people we may never meet.
Different Histories, the Same Truth
This design was created for Keti Koti, a moment to remember the history of Dutch slavery, its abolition and the long struggle towards genuine freedom.
That history stands on its own and deserves to be recognised in its full significance.
At the same time, the theme of freedom opened something within the young people. They recognised that across many different histories, freedom has carried a price. Not every struggle is the same. Not every experience can or should be compared. But behind many of the freedoms we experience today are generations who suffered, resisted, survived and sacrificed.
Whether a family’s history is rooted in Suriname, the Caribbean, Syria, Eritrea, Afghanistan, the Balkans or somewhere else in the world, there are people behind us whose lives helped make ours possible.
That realisation became the foundation of Before Me Came Thousands.
The Young People as Part of That History
For many of the young people who helped create this design, this is not a story from a history book. They are living inside a story that is still unfolding.
The people involved in creating this design came from Iraq, Pakistan, Iran, Nigeria, Syria, Somalia and the Balkans. Each of them brought a different history, culture and experience into the room. Their journeys cannot be reduced to one shared story, yet they recognised something in one another: the sacrifices made by the people before them, and the sacrifices they are making themselves.
Their families sometimes left behind everything they knew. They took risks, endured uncertainty and started again, hoping their children could one day live in safety and freedom.
But the young people themselves are also making sacrifices. They are growing up between countries, languages and identities. They are beginning again in environments that do not always understand what they have lived through. They are building a future while parts of their past remain behind borders.
They are therefore not only a generation benefiting from the sacrifices of others.
They are part of the story themselves.
One day, future generations may look back at them as some of the thousands who came before: the people who crossed borders, started over and carried the weight of uncertainty so that those after them could live with greater freedom.
The Ancestors of Tomorrow
Perhaps their children or grandchildren will one day grow up somewhere that feels completely like home. Perhaps they will speak about safety without knowing how much uncertainty came before it. Perhaps they will never know every goodbye, every fear or every difficult decision that made their freedom possible.
But their freedom will have been shaped by the young people who are building a new future today.
That is the deeper meaning carried by this design.
We are all the result of people who came before us. At the same time, we are the ancestors of people who have not yet been born.
More Than a Design
Before Me Came Thousands is a tribute to the people who helped make our freedom possible. To the names recorded in history, but also to the parents, grandparents, families and communities whose sacrifices may never appear in any history book.
The design reminds us that freedom did not begin with us.
And our responsibility does not end with us.
Before us came thousands.
And through what we do today, thousands will come after us.
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