What made someone a liberal humanist? Why did someone commit to a particular cause? What form did the commitment take? And how did family, social, professional and regional backgrounds play a significance in the life of the liberal humanist? As part of the project ‘A Liberal Humanist Cultural Heritage Forum for Flanders’, CAVA approached numerous committed liberal humanists with these questions. Because witnesses are also forgetting and/or disappearing. Moreover, there is a glaring lack of sources on this chapter in the history of Flanders and Brussels. These memories and stories therefore provide a wealth of information not readily available in written sources. They constitute important testimonies about the breakthrough of liberal humanist thought in Flanders and Brussels and are part of the oral heritage of liberal humanism.

CAVA therefore organised several storytelling evenings, during which a panel of liberal humanists from the region reminisced. The audience did not leave out either. An audio recording was made of each talk. At the bottom of this page you will find an overview of the various storytelling evenings.

Moreover, the stories and testimonies of the story evenings were supplemented by interviews of liberal figures.

The liberal storytelling evenings took place with the support of the Flemish Government, deMens.nu, Uitstraling Permanente Vorming (VUB) and the Humanistisch Vrijzinnige Vereniging.

• Ronse: Een avond vol vrij zinnige verhalen (Tuesday 25 June 2013)
• Hasselt: Jong en vrijzinnig (Sunday 15 September 2013))
• Vilvoorde: Een avond vol vrij zinnige verhalen (Thursday 24 October 2013)
• Antwerpen: Vrijzinnigheid en onderwijs (Tuesday, 26 November 2013)
• Brugge: Een avond vol vrij zinnige verhalen (Wednesday 19 February 2014)
• Tienen: Een avond vol vrij zinnige verhalen (Monday 24 March 2014))
• Kortrijk: Vrijzinnigheid over de generaties heen (Tuesday 25 March 2014)
• Mechelen: Een avond vol vrij zinnige verhalen (Thursday 3 April 2014)
• Elsene: Studentikoos en vrijzinnig (Thursday 8 May 2014)
• Aalst: Getuigenissen over vrijzinnig humanisme (Saturday 10 May 2014)

Following Heritage Day 2017, which was dedicated to “Care”, several interviews were conducted with volunteers and pioneers of liberal-humanist care. A number of excerpts were selected from each interview, which together form the audio bar ‘Pioneers of liberal-humanist care’. As the full interviews contain a wealth of information, we don’t want to withhold them from you. Via the links below, you can listen to or read the interviews and learn more about the pioneers of liberal-humanist care and the course they took.

• Interview with Els Goderis (10 november 2016)
• Interview with Conny Verkest (17 november 2016)
• Interview with Tania Ramoudt (14 december 2016)
• Interview with Jan Verlinden (15 december 2016)

Liberal humanism has always been able to count on champions. Sometimes these were personalities who fought from the proverbial barricades, and who were known by the general public. But often they were men and women behind the scenes, who from their commitment and conviction as humanists, created and helped shape the liberal associations, the non-confessional ethics course or the liberal ceremonies.

As part of the project A liberal-humanist cultural heritage forum for Flanders (2012-2015), CAVA went in search of these people and their stories and testimonies. Some of them came to the fore through the storytelling evenings. But others were active in several fields and deserve an in-depth interview. These interviews can be seen

via www.cavavub.be.

• Interview with Karel Poma (10 July 2014)
• Interview with Hugo Dufour (28 January 2015)
• Interview with Luc Devuyst (28 April 2015)
• Interview with Sonja Eggerickx (19 January 2015)