Six years with Solomon

Dear reader,

Today is Solomon’s 6th birthday, which means that if Solomon was a person, he’d be starting school now — a new exciting stage of development and learning.

We’d like to thank you for your continued support during the past years, for reading our stories, keeping up with our newsletters, sharing our work on social media, and for donating to help us do independent journalism.

But I also want to thank you personally because this is the last newsletter I’ll be sending out as a member of the Solomon team. As of February 2022, I will no longer be working full-time for Solomon, and I am stepping down as a member of the Board. However, I will continue to collaborate with Solomon on a freelance basis.

Back when I created Solomon, if I said that I never imagined that it would become what it is today, I would be lying. My vision for Solomon is expansive, and I believe that the future of the organization will be impressive.

So, in case you’re wondering why I am stepping down now, the main reason is to focus on my physical and mental health. A few months after Solomon was established in 2016, I was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. For the last two and a half years, I have been in the process of preparing for my departure from the organization as I began to feel the effects of the disease on an almost daily basis.

As you may realize, such conditions require that we take good care of our mental health. But Solomon’s work is both a journalistic one as well as close to humanitarian endeavor — both industries with very high burnout rates.

So, after burning out three times — in the fall of 2016, in May 2020, and in December 2021, I decided that it was finally time to carry out what we have been preparing for since late 2019, that is, my departure.

Solomon will continue to thrive with a group of people who I am more than proud to call my friends as well as coworkers. Nasruddin, Stavros, Aristea, Gigi, Anastasia along with her team, and Iliana, of course, who is aboard as Solomon’s director.

As for me, I will continue as a freelancer, working in journalistic research and multimedia content production. You can read more about it on my website.

Thank you very much for reading thus far. Stay tuned to Solomon and you won’t be disappointed by what’s coming next!

My New Year’s wish for everyone is to pay attention to our mental health needs. This year, let’s focus on taking better care of ourselves.

See you around,
Fanis

Click here to read Solomon’s first issue back from 2016