Hope, a word that means ‘an optimistic state of mind that expects for a desire to come true.’ However, quite often we forget what hope means on a deeper level. It’s not just a word, or an optimistic state of mind, it’s strength, resilience, patience and a form of light in a world of wars, geographical inequality and ongoing crises.
An orphan child born into an unprivileged family hopes to become his mother’s financial support one day. A little girl born in a highly conservative society hopes to educate herself one day. A man born in a village hopes to bring resources for his family one day. A woman who was not given the opportunity of education hopes to learn a skill to run a business one day. It is what they hope in quiet suffering, which pushes them to change their lives. And that silent power changes the world.
Any form of hope requires a willingness to act on it, and that is where true change happens. Pakistan being one of the most affected countries by climate change, previously suffered with flood crisis that perished people’s homes, the homes they built with their life’s savings. And yet they rebuilt a house again, replacing their despair with hope. Widowed women who were never given the right to education, spent days learning skills to start a business of their own, only to fulfil the hope to put food on the table for their starved children. Orphans who had lost one of their parents, worked hard at every step of their journey to graduate from a reputable university, only to fulfil their late parent’s dream. Behind every story of hope becoming a reality, is someone who puts faith in themselves and this world and that changes the trajectory of their lives.
In a different context, the privileged population of Pakistan, hopes from a different lens. Their struggles are alarming in their own way, such as suffering from an untreatable illness, depression after a death of a loved one, or a disability after an accident. In those devastating and challenging times, only a ray of hope makes the challenges bearable. Holding onto the hope that some day a doctor will find the treatment, some day therapy will help their depression and help with grief, and some day learning how to live better despite the disabilities will become easier. And when they hope, it starts to become their reality.