We Need a Vision. We All Need to Dream.

Life for most of us has become increasingly unpredictable lately. Some days, it really feels as though the world is full of countless challenges and constantly changing. In all of our WriteUnite projects, young people talk about the challenges the world is facing, and then often ask ‘What can we do to change things?’

There are many practical answers to this question – we are not powerless, but perhaps the best advice I was ever given was to hold onto a dream of the world I want to live in.

I was reminded of this when I talked to ecological engineer and Forbes #30Under30 recipient, Nadina Galle about her Visions of the Future and her motivations. She told me:

When I was 12 years old, I saw a film that forever changed my life. It was about how cities were out of control, growing bigger and bigger without any real thought about how people would be able to live good lives there.

I decided at that moment that it would become my life’s mission to build better places for people to live.

From her vision of building better cities at 12 years old, Nadina has gone on to become an award-winning ecological engineer and entrepreneur dedicated to applying technology to creating cities that are greener, healthier and offer a brighter future to those living in them.

At 12 she dared to imagine and dream, and I really believe that this is the seed that helps make change possible.

As American poet Lucille Clifton said, ‘We cannot create what we can’t imagine.’ As young people, we might not necessarily have everything we need to make a change, but it is the power of the idea that will drive everything in the future.

The same sentiment came through in a letter the Manchester United and England footballer Marcus Rashford published recently, written to himself as a 10-year-old boy. At that age, he was living with his mum in Manchester, often going without. It would almost have been impossible to imagine the future life he would lead as a footballer, and also the influence he is now having as he campaigns for free meals for children in the UK during the Covid-19 pandemic. Yet his advice to himself was:

I encourage you to dream, because sometimes dreams are all you will have … If I had to ask one thing of you it would be this. Please, never go to bed feeling like you don’t have a role to play in this life because, believe me when I tell you, the possibilities are endless.

So, when a young person asks me what they can do to change the world, I tell them to dream. To dream big. To hold on to the vision of the world they want and keep believing in it.

And hopefully, when a young person has their ideas published with WriteUnite, it’s one step on the way to bringing the dream closer, to letting others share their vision and to building a better future.