23: On hope

Six months ago, I moved to Belgium. In the last week, I returned hurriedly to Australia to be with my family while my grandmother passed from this life. The country has been ravaged by some of the worst floods in recent memory, with entire towns virtually wiped out and a long clean up and rebuilding effort ahead. The rain has been consistent, heavy, devastating; for weeks on end. When I landed, I was greeted by a wall of humidity more familiar in Singapore than Sydney.

Climate change is making my home country feel like a subtropical climate, filled with constant fear of the next natural disaster to be waged within the ongoing pandemic, that was preceded by a hellish fire season. The word “unprecedented” repeated so much that it no longer carries the weight of something unusual.

In the car with my cousin, we spoke about some of these things, the invasion of Ukraine, and about some of the content of my studies- critical lenses on global economic systems, destruction of urban ecology, how people exist and live within cities. He asked, “From your perspective, is there any hope for the future? Can our governments do anything”

It’s a tough question to answer. Through covid, I’ve loved the content of Upworthy, sharing the “best of humanity” globally, to help counter the negative news more commonly shared on other platforms. At my university, there are talks exploring bottom-up approaches to cities, where people are more important than profits*.

And yet, as a part of the youth inheriting this planet, it can be increasingly difficult to have hope, when high-level, impactful decisions often seem to be putting the interests of future generations to the back burner, in favour of preserving the status quo.

As my Grandmother faded from this life, I recall her efforts to constantly support the students she taught, the family she raised, the migrant community she was a part of and worked tirelessly for. And so, I’m going to try to keep finding, and sharing, projects and ideas that bring hope, a repository I can turn to in moments where the world can feel a little bit too heavy.

*Brussels Centre for Urban Studies, in particular, the StadsSalonsUrbains lecture series.