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A week ago, I had a draft version of this newsletter ready to go. Then came the invasion of Ukraine. And it seemed important to pause a moment to take that in. As changemakers, this has happened on our watch.
As Bill McKibben put it in his article this weekend, “We should be in agony today – people are dying because they want to live in a democracy, want to determine their own affairs. But that agony should, and can, produce real change.”[1] As educators, humanitarians and entrepreneurs we need to be asking ourselves right now, “How will we produce that real change through our eco-systems? Where will this present moment lead us if we don’t urgently and clearly imagine with our communities, the flourishing futures that we do want?” Why imagine? Because imagining is the first point of owning solutions: it is the source of optimistic innovation. It’s the starting point of youth activation. It’s the start of community engagement. It’s where hope starts. 1st March 2022 is World Futures Day: a global conversation over 24 hours to explore the challenges and imagine opportunities for building flourishing futures. You can join in the conversation organised by The Millennium Project at 12 noon in your time-zone via this link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/5221011954?pwd=UEg4TXhYMnU0TGxyNzNsUUd6dXQ4Zz09#success I’ll be there 12.00 CET and 12.00 GMT. Join in. If you can’t join the call, you can still inspire hope in your professional communities, especially with young people, using three simple steps:
It’s a simple activity, disrupting the status quo and initiating action. What strikes me from Bill McKibben’s article is the link between this act of aggression, climate and the urgent need to reclaim precious minerals like nickel from phones, batteries and electrical goods, in order to reuse them in renewable energy. Imagine if we ramped that up over this year as a problem solved? There are extraordinary consequences. More than ever, catalysing ourselves to reclaim the future starts with ideas as small acts of great love. Imagine it, then unfold it: what seeds of hope will you plant this coming week, what optimistic, urgent innovation will you spark? Stay safe and well. Elaine [1] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/feb/25/this-is-how-we-defeat-putin-and-other-petrostate-autocrats [2] https://www.toolshero.com/decision-making/futures-wheel-jerome-glenn/ Comments are closed.
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