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my story of hopefulness are Joe and George from London who started a company called artistic spaces, They now have roughly half a million square footage of warehouses which they rent out to artists. They began about 12 years ago by taking on a warehouse in South London and dividing spaces up to create opportunities for artists to create and musicians to have studios. I am inspired by their ethic to think big and not be afraid to fail because you won't do anything original if you think like that. But so much is about the grind. People often want to think and dream big, but they don't want to do the steps to get there but there are no shortcuts, it's just years and years of putting that effort in, During the challenging time of COVID they gave up spaces to store medical supplies and help create facilities for doctors. They have one of London's largest square footage of artists spaces and workshops and are my inspiration.

Joe Murphy and I have been doing some research into the UN Convention on Climate Change and on the series of conferences that have defined the targets and represents a glimmer of hope for the natural world. We have spoken to the people involved from the UN Secretariat to the people creating the protocols that form the basis of international law around climate change which is incredibly inspiring. Kyoto was really the first time that 200 countries came together and agreed that something should be done. This idea that you can get so many people from so many different countries to agree is sort of unbelievably inspiring and gives us hope. We think there are a lot of lessons there at a time when it feels like we're not agreeing and the idea of consensus is out of our grasp.

My hopeful story is the Reverend Paul Nicholson, who began life as a wine merchant and then became a priest and moved to Tottenham in London where he devoted himself to the service of the poorest of the poor. He commissioned research on benefits and the fact that they weren't enough to live on and he started this extraordinary campaign which was the living wage movement and persuaded London Mayor Ken Livingstone to take it up. I spoke to him the week before he died aged 87 and he was heading to Downing Street where he was going to beg sitting outside Downing Street to really experience what it was to have nothing and to sit on a pavement ignored by those who passed by. I offered to sit with him as I was quite worried about him but he refused 'I have to go alone because otherwise I won't experience what those I'm fighting for experience'. He lived an incredibly humble life in one room in Tottenham and the only thing he cared about was compassion. He ran a brilliant organisation called taxpayers against poverty, which is what it says on the tin and set up the Zacchaeus Foundation which works with homeless people and fights for the rights of benefit claimants. None of his energy was devoted to his ego, it was channelled straight into the work, he was a tuning fork for suffering and my hero.

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.

My story of hopefulness is the former president of Finland Martti Ahtisaari. I lived in Finland for seven years and I feel I do have a good grasp of what many Finnish people are like, and I've met a lot of people who do things quietly, and yet initiate enormous change. Quietly, Martti Ahtisaari was one of those people. His organisation has been at the heart of peace deals in some of the most challenging of situations. What he was known for and what I love is that he was a good listener which is obviously the key for any peacebuilder, to be able to listen quietly and bring people together. He died in October 2023 aged 87 but is my hopeful story because of his humility and his passion for people.

My story of hope is around biotechnology which I think is going to transform the world. Countless individuals and businesses are learning ways to hack biology in all kinds of different ways to produce the things we need. What we see is a combination of information technology and bio technologies coming together in such a way to not just decode nature, but actually begin to design all kinds of things, particularly food and materials. It's going to solve all kinds of problems as we learn to produce food and materials from a single molecule, a single cell with almost perfect efficiency which will lead to lower cost food and materials, but also a vastly lower cost to our planet. This whole space is one that just holds endless fascination for me and there are so many different businesses operating in this space which is hopeful.

I see the hope that comes from people's lives lifted out of poverty, out of hopelessness. One of the brands I most admire is Tony's Chocolonely who deliver the most amazing chocolate, but they also help take people out of slavery, and relentlessly pursue a clean supply chain all the way through. So that's my definition of hope.

My story of hopefulness, is about the Al-ayn Foundation, which was started in Iraq in 2006. They really engage and capture the imagination through creating toy shops for children who have particularly been affected by war, They ask people to donate, brand new toys, or possibly very good condition toys. and then children go into these toy shops and choose a toy, without having to pay for it. But one of the things that I love about Al-ayn is that they think from a trauma informed perspective working with people who are forgotten by society, and who are often vulnerable. They also try and give the best in medical care whilst again retaining dignity and pride.

I've been so inspired by a charity called Women for Women International. I love what they do because as a news person who has spent a lot of time in war zones, you know that the war is not going to be in the hearts and minds in the long term. People don't know what's happening five or ten years later but It takes generations to rebuild a country after a war, and I love this organisation because of the way they help women to rebuild their lives. They find and train the women that have the least, the widows, those who are really struggling, and literally help rebuild a nation through the lives of these women. It's long term, hard work and it's been life changing for me to hear the stories of the women they work with.

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.

Steve has gone to coral reefs around the world that are struggling, dying out and what he and his team have been experimenting with is recording sounds of healthy coral reefs, and then playing them in the water back to unhealthy coral reefs then seeing what happens. Incredibly many unhealthy coral reefs are literally thriving with life again, they're coming back to life just from the sound of healthy coral reefs. And so the next step is gathering all the sounds across the world of healthy underwater soundscapes and then mashing them all together to almost create a world that's not real but sounds healthy. He's travelling around the great barrier reefs and trying to see what brings them back to life. The tech is so simple. It's a little underwater microphone that's very affordable. It's being played back through an underwater speaker that they use for synchronised swimming so it's all very accessible gear and I'm thinking this is something in theory people could do themselves in their own areas. But not only that, it's giving people the opportunity to hear fish, I've never heard fish before until now. Steve's very up for working with everybody and anybody because his pure goal is for the benefit of nature and bringing it back to where it was before we started interfering. And I think if you're willing to put all of that on the line, all of your ego aside to to help the world. I just think that's an incredible project.

Blue Ventures are doing a remarkable work supporting coastal communities around the world, helping to restore ocean life and creating sustainable fishing. There are 300 million people worldwide who live in communities who are totally dependent on small scale fisheries for their life and livelihoods. Blue Ventures have been developing their work for over 20 years supporting communities working from Madagascar to Indonesia and they are taking a real systems based approach. A big focus is addressing net zero with mangrove development that can sequester 10 times the amount of carbon than a rainforest. This work is so hopeful.

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.

Anna Yona who is the co-founder of Wildling Shoes, a business making the healthiest and most sustainable shoes on the planet.

I think about my meeting with Albert Woodfox who is on the album. He is a black panther who was incarcerated for 43 years in a six by three feet cell for a crime that he didn't commit for 23 hours a day. The thing that struck me most about asking him about the cost of freedom, was that he views freedom as a construct within your own mind. So whether you're sat like Tim Peake, looking down at the world or held in solitary confinement, Albert's argument is that freedom is available to everyone because freedom exists in your mind. I think that in these days of political and financial insecurity it's really interesting and hopeful to take away that thought from someone that has really lived on the extreme end of life, that you can actually be free in your mind.

My story of helpfulness is about the French brand called hopaal located in the French Basque Country. I really love their devotion and commitments to creating simple durable products with the least impact on the planet using recycled materials, clean energy and local production. For sure it's still a small company but they are already doing great things. Most important is that they have a clear vision for the textile industry, the textile consumption which is about consuming less and better at the same time.