By Ellen, 350 UK Senior Organiser

The coronavirus pandemic has turned our world upside down. No-one in the UK’s life has been left untouched by this virus: some of us are grieving lost loved ones, some have lost their jobs, all of us are facing the challenges of staying home and safe through this lockdown. It’s hard to comprehend the situation we find ourselves in.

But the impacts of the pandemic are not falling equally among us. In fact, the crisis has laid bare the shocking scale of inequality in our society. It’s clear that after lockdown ends, we can’t just go back to the way things were before.

That’s why at 350 we’re joining with Nurses United and many others to launch the Build Back Better campaign today. We’re campaigning for a post-pandemic future where people and planet come first.

Today is International Nurses Day – a day to celebrate and fight for the incredible nurses in our NHS who have been working day in, day out to keep us healthy and safe in this pandemic.

But while key workers like nurses – largely women, migrants and people of colour – risk their lives to keep us safe, many are scraping by earning less than they can live on. While the wealthy isolate comfortably in their spacious homes, others are trapped in crowded and unstable living situations – choosing between paying rent, and feeding their family.

Now is the time to demand a different future, one we desperately need.

Working together, we can create a world where our NHS and crucial public services are protected; where communities are bailed out over big business interests; and where a Green New Deal delivers us a safe climate and thousands of new secure and unionised jobs.

The response of ordinary people over the last couple of months has given me so much hope in these dark times. Now is our chance to come together and win a future where we build back better.

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