«Middle school-level jokes». Stryzhak spoke about a new project — explains that there is no sex in the name

First of all, Stryzhak notes that far from all Belarusians abroad have somewhere to turn for solidarity in times of trouble. There is a system of assistance for politically repressed individuals. But where do ordinary, non-repressed people go?

«The situation in Belarus is not getting better, and this causes a huge outflow of people from the country. Even if they leave for economic reasons, politics lies behind it: questioning this is the same as questioning why people leave Venezuela. Far from all of those who leave were repressed; many are just people who can no longer live in the country due to the regime that exists there.

These people have no confirmation of being repressed, many of them participated in protests but did not keep evidence, as they destroyed and cleared everything,» Stryzhak reflects.

Such people, he says, are not covered by any aid. For example, if a misfortune strikes them — a serious illness, a fire, or something else. In such a case, these people turn to local fundraising platforms like GoFundMe or zrzutka.pl.

According to Stryzhak, Belarusians today do not have such a solidarity platform:

«Before the events of 2020, such tools existed — these were the platforms «Ulej», «Molamola», «Talaka». Gronka has taken over the functions of «Ulej» today, it deals with cultural projects, there is a system for assisting politically repressed individuals. But there is no structure that could simply accept an application from a person who has fallen into trouble. Today, I see a need in the public sphere for such a structure to be created.»

This, Andrei says, is the difference between the new BelAid initiative and Bysol — it's about a different audience. And what's wrong, he ponders, if project audiences overlap and several initiatives work in the same field?

He calls this an expression of freedom of association: everyone can create their own organization and seek resources for it, using the opportunities they have — reputational, resource-related. For a democratic society, it is normal that there are many organizations and each finds or does not find its place under the sun. And if it turns out to be unviable, it simply does not find support and dies, and that is also normal.

Stryzhak is currently assembling a team. As of today, he says, there are more than 40 volunteer applications:

«One third of the applications today are irrelevant, as these are specialists who could theoretically join at later stages of the work. Another third are completely irrelevant; these people will have to be told that there are no tasks for them and their profile does not match the structure's work. The remaining ones are those who will be involved in the work right now.»

These are people who know how to build websites and work with payment platforms, that is, those who will be involved in the technical part of the project. Today, the initiative is precisely at the stage of creating a technical team. Currently, there are no Bysol employees in this team. Who knows what will happen next?»

In addition to recruiting volunteers, Stryzhak also announced a fundraiser for the initiative. So far, he says, a few hundred euros have been collected, but he understands why the amount is small — the fundraiser does not carry the emotional charge of collections for released political prisoners.

Once the team is ready, the next step is to create a test version of the platform that can be shown when seeking money for development.

The new project received a lot of complaints due to its name. Stryzhak received comments on his posts about the initiative, stating that BelAid is an encrypted expression of "to be laid", one of the meanings of which is "to have sex". Let us remind you that a few months ago, Andrei Stryzhak was forced to leave Bysol, where he was one of the founders, precisely due to a scandal involving the sending of dick pics.

Stryzhak says he takes such hate normally:

«Criticism of this kind demonstrates the level of people who read this name in such a way. It's not me who wrote it like that, it's them who read it like that; these are middle school-level jokes. This name might sound strange if broken into parts, but what was embedded in this name is more important.

That wave of hate worked as advertising, attracting additional attention. I didn't pay these haters for the advertising, I can be grateful to them.»

In fact, Andrei explains, the name was created with a different logic:

«It's made by analogy with USAID or EuropeAid — 'aid' translates from English as 'help', and the first part of the word is an abbreviation of the name of the state or group of states providing this aid. BelAid is 'Belarusian aid'.»

Andrei admits that he banned people prone to hating him on social networks — saying that since he withdrew from public life, he can allow himself not to listen to some people. Mostly people who support him remained, Stryzhak says.

«Many appreciated the idea that a person has the right to a second chance and that the more initiatives, the better: what is viable will work, and if not, then not,» he reflects.

Stryzhak finds it difficult to say when the project will be launched — perhaps the first prototype will appear in spring. Meanwhile, Stryzhak has something to say to the haters:

«Some people believe that we don't need to create anything new — arguing that we already have a lot. This shows that there is an undemocratic approach in society. I would like to suggest that such people give a chance and not criticize new things from the start.

Let's be honest: recently, not many Belarusian initiatives have appeared in the field; we see more information about their closure. To avoid whining later that we have nothing and no one wants to work, just don't engage in hate towards those who are doing something. I'm not just talking about myself, but also about other people in the public sector who also get criticized at every opportunity.»

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