During our October Diversity Dialogue with the topic of “Finding Hope”, two strong voices emerged – the “trapped” and the “free”.

At one point the trapped voice explained “It feels like we tell them our struggle and they bombard us with this hope thing. They say, here is a wall, climb it and everything will be okay. We come from a background where no-one climbed the wall. Hope and motivation itself are a leg-up we did not have.”

Later, the free voice said, “At some point, I have to ask, how can I help you with the skills I have learnt coming from my background? I take the time to sit down and try to help you. How do I show you that I am trying to empower you and not belittle you? I am trying to pass on skills down a chain.”

During this dialogue, there was movement towards each other and a greater understanding of each other’s point of view. We left with the will to apply what we had learnt into our contexts, trying to pass more hope on to others in love.