My story of hope is born over human connection. We had a young lad who worked with us who was kicked out of school at 15 without any qualifications, came to work for us and did a fantastic job and got a chance to go on the inaugural Michael Johnson Global Leadership Programme which led to him becoming an ambassador for a global organisation called Coaches across continents. At the same time I was connected to a woman called Dr Shukla Balls in India, who runs a foundation called the Parikrma foundation which is an incredible project set up to provide education for kids who live in the slums. Fast forward a couple of years, and we're able to connect, Jimmy to Shukla and now Jimmy spends time at Parikrma, teaching and training some of the teachers how to use sport to educate kids. All this purely through the power of human connection.

Phil and Wendy Wall started a charity called we see hope just over 20 years ago. It started in South Africa and there was one child in particular who caught their attention who they really wanted to adopt but were unable to so. In classic Phil and Wendy style what they did was rather than adopt the one child, they decided to adopt financially as many as they could. They weren't people of wealth but took their entire life savings and gave it away in ten pound notes to complete strangers. In large gatherings, they would give away a 10 pound note to each person and say please make it into 100 pounds and send it back to us. In doing so they raised millions for these children and today we see hope looks after orphans and vulnerable children across Sub Saharan Africa.

So this is about three adults in the Gambia, who voluntarily run a nursery school for kids aged three to seven from about 9am to 2pm Monday to Friday whilst also working full time jobs. I met these people on a trip to the Gambia and they are genuine heroes to me. Despite palpable hardships, the locals maintained a vibrant and supportive community but the school itself was pretty modest but really well organised with purely donated supplies. They had a really well maintained library and the heartbeat of the school were these three people who were working night shifts as their primary jobs but dedicated to teaching essential subjects at school in the day. Their energy was infectious, a mix of resilience and warmth, but really driven by an imperative need for education in a community where many couldn't afford it. For me, the tireless work of these three people really stands testament to the transformative power of education and unshakable human spirit dedicated to nurturing and uplifting the next generation. Remembering their selfless acts of service for me, renews faith in our collective future and the fundamental good of humanity.

I think hands down it's Gitcoin, a Web3 institution that has led the charge in normalising and celebrating the process of creating and funding public goods in the most people powered way possible. So they started off by funding open source software and they have funded 10s of millions of dollars for open source software. I hope this is extended to fund projects that are related to journalism and advocacy, and regenerating the environment. Gitcoin is not a silver bullet to regenerating the world. But it has inspired me and inspired things.

There's a lot of incredible positive things happening, and the one that I would like to focus on is the community called Gish which was set up by the actor Misha Collins, It's the world's largest online scavenger hunt that happens every year. I became their change a life Ambassador which essentially means I share a story of an individual community that I have documented in the previous 12 months, and together we raise funds to try and have a direct and positive impact on that community. We've been doing it for years now and we've managed to save a dance school in South Africa, support Syrian refugees in Lebanon, fund the mining projects in Lao, and this year we were able to support a children's ward of the emergency hospital in Kabul. This is such a thing of hopefulness because of the community that comes together to do this, individuals spread across the world who come together to make a huge difference. So, whilst most of the donations are between 5, 10 or maybe 20 dollars, when 1000s of people come together to create change, as a community, we're able to have a huge impact. So we have raised over $250,000 for that hospital in Afghanistan and it's not just the money raised but you see the sense of solidarity, you see the way the community comes together and to see in young people a real belief that there is a better way.

So my story of hopefulness is a wonderful man Salomon Rettig who is a holocaust survivor born in 1923 in Berlin. At the age of 10, his mother couldn't care for him anymore so he was sent to an orphanage. He escaped the orphanage aged 13 and ended up in Palestine where he lived in a kibbutz for ten years. He eventually was able to make his way to the US where he felt for the first time that he was held and safe in a place where he could thrive. He told me the story of his wife asking him, what you want to do with your life and he had never thought about this question his whole life. She inspired him to go to university as he was really interested in social psychology. Eventually he got his PhD and he shared how that was one of the most joyful moments in his life, to become respected and to see the worth that he could bring into the world. it's a beautiful story of trauma but also human resilience and what's possible when someone is nurtured and loved and cared for.

My story of helpfulness is an organisation called Charity Water which is based in New York City but operates around the world. It was founded by an incredible visionary entrepreneur called Scott Harrison in response to the fact that one in ten humans on earth do not have easy regular access to clean water which we know has significantly negative effects on health, education and on economic development. Over the last fifteen years or so, Charity Water has succeeded in raising more than half a billion dollars and has funded almost 60,000 water projects that has positively impacted 11 million people in mostly Africa and Asia. What's amazing and special about Charity Water is that they are committed to full transparency, not just in terms of their fundraising and allocation of funds but also tracking the progress of projects, months, years down the line, to ensure that benefit is still being delivered to those communities. The vision of Charity Water is not just to to deliver water projects which is obviously fundamentally and critically important, but use that as a means to inspire everyday people around the world to think about how they can best serve their neighbours, and those among us who are weak and marginalised and vulnerable and suffering. So I think Scott's vision challenges all of us around how we can ignite a spirit of generosity that then becomes viral and empowers people to help improve the human condition?

My story is about a lady that very few people know of called Bernadette Moses who is a wonderful humble lady living with a disability in the heart of the community on the Cape Flats in Cape Town. What she does is amazing through small acts of kindness. People that can do small actions can make a big difference to our planet.