Episode 1: Hope in the making

Hope Rising

This is our first episode and I want to know when have you felt hopeless, and what have you done about it? I started this podcast because I was a bit stuck because, you know, 2016. I don’t even need to mention what’s happened in 2016. It just feels like the world is upside down. Not that the world was the right way around before, far from it, but more than ever in my lifetime, it feels that the values I hold dear are being crushed. Rebecca Solnit wrote in her 2004 book Hope in the Dark: “It is important to say what hope is not. It is not the belief that everything is or will be fine. The evidence is all around us of tremendous suffering and destruction. The hope I’m interested in is about broad perspectives with specific possibilities, ones that invite or demand that we act.” So what is the alternative to feeling hopeless when the world feels wrong? And if hope is about action, what does hope in action look like? That is the focus of this episode. To find out, I went to Athens because the story we hear is the story of a place in crisis. But I also knew that Greece had seen a rise in solidarity and volunteering. So I went there to meet people involved in these movements . Because I thought, there is probably a thing or two that they can teach me about hope. Big thanks to: Maria Chatzopoulou Giorgos & the Handlebar Yiannis Loukos and also to: Ajo Clua, Jake Garber, Aliyah Norrish, Gisli Darri Music by Lee Rosevere