It's Only The Beginning...

For the past few weeks, we’ve been focused on the closing date for submissions to Visions of the Future and helping everybody to get their ideas in. Thank you to every single young person who has shared their work with us. And thank you to all the teachers and parents and youth workers who have helped get us this far.

It might feel like an ending, the deadline has passed, the submissions have all been completed. But actually, it’s just the beginning.

Over the coming weeks we get to read all of the submissions, and start to put them together for publishing. We’ve had over 600 submissions from all over the world and it’s the best job in the world to read them all.

And we want to keep everybody as involved as they want to be – so we will be asking young people to help make decisions about what and how we publish the brilliant ideas that have been shared. This is just the start of months of working together on how to make sure the voices of young people are shared far and wide.

From the submissions that we have already read it’s clear that new beginnings are something young people are particularly focused on right now. The COVID-19 pandemic has affected all young people and many are looking to a brighter future to emerge.

Juliette, 14, from Canada says:

“After COVID-19 I hope everyone will be treated equally and that the world will be a better place.”

And young people are very determined that this world after the pandemic needs to be fair for all – with a strong focus on protecting and rebuilding the world around us. It’s inspiring to know that even when for most the past 12 months have involved disruption and isolation, young people are planning for new beginnings.

Meera, 13, from India, sums up our new beginnings when she says:

“We always have a choice for our future, we can choose whether we want to live poorly in a polluted environment, or well in a harmonious ecosystem. There’s always a choice.”

Thank you again for all the submissions and for the reminder that we constantly come to new beginnings. Please stay involved and help to take Visions of the Future to all those around the world who need to hear its message.