Hope in Divided Times
I’m at the beginning of a pilot project focused on the topic of hope. It involves teachers at a large and beautifully diverse high school in the Midwest using photovoice in the classroom. Over the course of several class sessions, students will spend time in small group discussions about photos they compose in response to several prompts:
What does hope look like in your everyday life?
What helps you experience hope (bridges)?
What gets in the way of hope (barriers)?
What would need to happen to amplify hope in your everyday life?
Before these amazing young people start sharing the stories behind their photos, we’re giving them a survey to measure their levels of hope, wellbeing, and flourishing. They will complete the survey after their photovoice project—and because our nerdy friends out there are wondering (you know who you are), they will complete the survey a third time.
This project is about testing out photovoice as an intervention to improve levels of hope. We hypothesize that photographing and discussing hope, along with identifying ways to amplify it, will do just that: make hope more available and accessible in one’s everyday life and in the life of their community.
We live in divided times. Sometimes hope seems distant and elusive. One way to access hope is to reflect on hope and identify times and places where it shows up in your everyday life. Document it. Find the bridges that connect you to hope and figure out what you could do to build more of them. Identify barriers to hope and find ways around them.
We used to sit next to each other on our couches with a photo album spanning our laps. The photos and stories behind them became bridges between us. We told each other about the important experiences and people in our lives.
These days, we’re snapping more photos than ever but having less of these conversations. Sharing stories about our experiences, our hopes, and the challenges we face is an important way to bridge divides: through them we encounter one another’s humanity, develop empathy, and build community.
So, I invite you to explore hope this week. Snap a few photos. Share your story with others. And let us know what happens in you and through you.