The slow ways project

submitted by

Andrew

I recently came across The slow ways project which I found inspiring and hopeful. They are encouraging people to use existing paths that criss cross the landscape and move at the speed of natural human movement.

Land and Food

The Entrepreneurial Refugee Network (TERN)

submitted by

Steve

Enabling refugees to thrive through the power of their own ideas.

Civic Engagement

https://someoneelse.s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/se-story-5a30-4e31-yc76-257ec45dfb3c.wav

Extrabold Typography to change the world

submitted by

Chrissy

I'm going to choose a young man called Archie Moore who is a designer and a graduate from Falmouth, School of Art. He created a typographic project which I think is a brilliant example of how anything that we do can positively change the world. He created this project called Extra Bold, an open source platform that has designed typographic letters and alphabets to help activists communicate better with clear, relevant typography for their marches and for their work. The power of words and typography and clear messaging is really important in movements and in organisations and I just love it because it was a completely selfless thing to put it out into the world.

Arts and Culture

Patagonia's 1% Earth Tax

submitted by

Nathan

Patagonia is my hopeful story as a great example of what I would deem community that happened also to be a business. They have invested in employees, and made those employees feel valued with a sense of purpose and then done the same with their customers who again I don't think want to be known as customers but a part of the Patagonia community. They self impose an earth tax of 1% for the planet and they champion and defend land and water across the globe. So, something that started off to make a difference and add value to somebody's hobby is now a huge force for good in the world.

Climate and Environment

PAZ creating jobs in refugee camps

submitted by

Daniela

Paz is a social business, working in refugee camps who train refugees in cloud computing, digital marketing and data science and broker their employment with tech firms here in Europe. PAZ is a startup that is run by a really passionate leader Leticia and their main goal is to create job opportunities and connections outside the refugee camps, giving dignity to people but also remuneration so that they can start planning for a future life. Both PAZ and the refugees are paid by the tech companies who employ them which for me is a great example of a social business that is contributing to solutions.

Science and Tech

My foster brother Mez who escaped military service

submitted by

Jaz

There have been many amazing people that have brought me a lot of hope, but I would like to share about my foster brother Mez who is an Eritrean refugee who left Eritrea at the age of 12 to flee compulsory military service. He didn't know where he was going or where he would be safe, and it took him a year to get to the UK. In that year, he crossed the Sahara Desert, he went 15 days without food, he lost friends along the way partly because the boat he was on capsized in the Mediterranean Sea. He walked across Europe and lived in the Calais jungle. That feat of endurance aged 12 has just stayed with me. Whenever I am facing anything hard, I think about Mez and I think about his life now and how he continues to work hard and never take anything for granted.

Education

Systems thinker Donella Meadows

submitted by

Mathilda

The wonder that is Donella Meadows. She was a systems thinker and a woman who has really stood up for a process of change and for increasingly encouraging people to deal, and to stick with the big questions, and not turn away. Donella famously introduced the list of places to intervene in a system and got us thinking very differently about what changed things.

Climate and Environment

Liz Robinson at Big Education

submitted by

Mark

My hopeful story is Liz Robinson, who runs an organisation called Big Education. A multi trust academy that is focused on the idea of reexamining how we educate our children to ensure that we are drawing out the very best in them as opposed to pouring into them what we think is useful for an economy, is easy to measure and easy to build a system for. Liz and the people that she works with are all incredible innovators in the education space and yet they are deeply entrenched within the system. They know the politics, they know the systemic challenges that it faces and the pressures that are being put on everybody in that system. They are determined to find a way through proof points not through some conceptual magic, but through evidence and proof and case studies to take a new way of teaching to society to government and ensure that we draw out of children the best that is possible.

Education