A collective called Possible Futures, a collective of women from across the global south. They are organised in a way to stand in solidarity with indigenous communities, land defenders, peasants and also smallholder farmers. I'm just completely in awe of what they do.

My main source of hope for many years has been the Global Alliance for Banking on Values. It's a network of values based banks across the world. There's about 66 of them now with about 60 million customers and they all put serving society and the environment as their objectives. So yes, they do make a profit but that's only one thing. The aim is to support the people the projects that are making the world a better place, funding the future that we want. They are doing this in one of the hardest systems to change with so many obstacles and yet they have got this network of amazing organisations who are doing it and been doing it for decades with every aspect of their work infused with purpose. I see the ecology building society in the UK, I see Triodos across Europe, Vancity in Canada which is an amazing credit union. I think they are the future of the financial system and the tool that we need if we're going to have a liveable Future.

My story of hope is about a chap called Chris who I met whilst working with a number of agencies focussed on poverty. One of those partners was a winter shelter that are places where homeless people can come and get support. I remember Chris quite specifically because he was quite a cheeky chap and ended up observing one of our immersive programs based around an Indian slum. At the end in front of everyone Chris stepped in and asked for the microphone. "I'd like to thank the winter shelter for helping me, I was there last night and woke up this morning and got given these new boots and this jacket. Six months ago, I lost my job and my wife left me and I ended up on the streets and I just like to say thank you to the winter shelter". I found out tragically that a few years later Chris died of alcohol related issues. Everyday in shelters and programs up and down the country are quite extraordinary acts of empathy and hopefulness, acts of solidarity, of being willing to be in the moment with people like Chris and so many others.

A few years ago Nana Eyeson-Akiwowo and her co founder started fourth phase, which is a brand that supports women after they give birth. As a mother to a five year old, I had no idea how rocky the road would be and how little anyone speaks of the fourth phase, which is when the baby comes. The best part about fourth phase is its community where you can connect with other mothers and learn how they're healing and how they are adjusting to things like breastfeeding, which was a challenge for me. I just really love what they've built. It's so thoughtful, it's so helpful, and I make sure that I gift a fourth phase box to anyone I know that has just given birth.

my story of hope is also a sad and shocking story about an incredible lady called Berta Isabel Cáceres Flores who was a Honduran activist, human rights and environmental activist who was murdered in March 2016 protesting the construction of a dam on sacred land, indigenous land. She represents this extraordinary community of individuals around the world, a lot of whom are female who put themselves in harm's way in the defence of what's right. Whilst it's an incredibly shocking story, people like Berta represent to me the best of humanity, people who are willing to put themselves in harm's way to do what's right.

Possible Futures are a collection of people based in the global south who are providing support. content, coursework and guidance around what it really looks like to break out of colonial patterns, these broken narratives that serve the current sustainable development world that serve the current mainstream business and industry model. Step out of those and see what it looks like to end the harmful models the extractive oppressive One world kind of narrative that is a big part of what is causing the systems to bleed the way they are. What does it look like to see and to genuinely understand our shared histories, and then to reorient our way forward. This is not light hearted work but they are really amazing people doing awesome stuff that fills my heart with joy. I think what possible futures is doing is next level, they're saying unless we also truly address the structural norms that are perpetuating the harm, all the nice little case studies in the world will get crushed by the boot of reality over and over and over. So what does it look like to really step out of that?

I'm gonna pick out the Doc Society who enable people making powerful documentary films about the most important stories of our time, to connect with audiences across the world, get funders, sort out their thinking, strategy, partnerships, and to create movements. All this is to enable the people who watch those films to take really concrete next steps and to help them to address the challenge the film is highlighting. The Doc Society are an impact documentary powerhouse and are just some of the most extraordinary people I've met.

My story of hopefulness is what I witnessed in response to fires that came through our communities and devastated our region that resulted in 3,000 people being displaced. I put out a call on Facebook for people to join me in biking in water and supplies to the neighbouring town where access was shut off for vehicles. In that town disabled and elderly folk were stuck in homes without water, electricity and even news. Some of them didn't have any mobile phone or access to information from the outside world. Incredibly in the wake of these fires seven people joined me and we biked in water and supplies to this neighbourhood where we found individuals who were in real need and hadn't seen anyone for a couple of days. I put the call out for more people to join us the following day and remarkably over 100 people in my small town showed up with their bikes. We ended up going to 3000 homes and what was amazing was to see the way that people organised so organically, so willingly and have continued to volunteer with this bike brigade and volunteering initiatives since. After the fire was a commitment to build back better, because the people who were most affected were largely Latino families on the i-five corridor who were living in mobile home parks where the fire roared through. Many of these people couldn't get insurance because of US legislation around mobile home parks which inspired a committed group of people to come together to ensure that the future of the town is filled with these people owning their homes. Not only that, it was decided that the land be put into trust, so that we we stop the extractive behaviour that was happening before. As a result of the fires we actually emerged with a more equitable, just and sustainable outcome.