Kate Metcalf, Wen Co-director on finding hope in community, connection and the small acts that help us imagine a fairer future together.
Last week, the Wen team gathered at Limborough Hub, our community space in Tower Hamlets, for a gardening and planting session as part of A Million Acts of Hope.
There was nothing very extraordinary about it. Some herbs and seedlings. Soil under fingernails. People chatting while watering plants and moving bags of compost around. A few moments together after a regular team meeting.
And yet it felt important.
Right now, many of us are carrying a sense of overwhelm. News alerts arrive faster than we can process them. War and displacement continue without end in sight. Climate breakdown. The worrying rise of misogyny, racism, Islamophobia and antisemitism. The cost of living. Exhaustion. It can feel difficult to know what to do with all of it, or whether individual actions can really make any difference at all in such divided times.
That feeling is understandable. But it is also why acts of connection matter so much.
At Wen, we talk about systems change because the problems we face are systemic. Communities should not have to carry the burden of fixing pollution, inequality or climate injustice on their own. Governments and industries must act. We need stronger policies, better protections, investment in communities and a transition to fairer systems that value care, health and wellbeing over extraction and profit.
But systems do not change in isolation. They change because people come together. Because relationships form. Because communities build power. Because people begin imagining something different together.
Sometimes that starts with something very small.
A conversation with a neighbour. Sharing food. Growing herbs on a windowsill. Checking in on someone. Spending time outside together. Joining a local project. Learning something new about the place where you live.
These moments can seem ordinary, but they create the conditions for hope. And hope is not passive. Hope, like love, is something we practice together.
We see that across Wen’s work every day.
In Tower Hamlets, communities are not just growing vegetables. They are building local resilience, sharing skills, reducing isolation and creating fairer food systems rooted in care and mutual support.
Across our projects, women are coming together to exchange knowledge, organise collectively and shape solutions that work for their communities.
In our work with women and children living in refuges after domestic abuse, therapeutic gardening creates opportunities for healing, safety and reconnection. Time spent planting, growing and being in nature can support wellbeing in profound ways, especially for people whose lives have been impacted by trauma and instability.
We also know access to green space matters. Research consistently shows the positive impact nature can have on mental and physical health. Yet access to safe, welcoming green spaces is deeply unequal, especially for racialised and marginalised women and communities. Many communities most affected by poverty, pollution and environmental injustice have the least access to nature too.
That is why these acts of hope matter politically as well as personally.
When communities come together to care for each other and their environment, they are also modelling a different future. One rooted in connection rather than isolation. Care rather than extraction.
A million acts of hope may sound small against the scale of the challenges we face. But collective action always starts somewhere. Social change is built through relationships, trust and people choosing not to turn away from one another.
At our planting session last week, someone said it felt good to be doing something together. Not because planting herbs will solve the climate crisis. But because moments like these remind us that another way of living is possible. They remind us we are not alone.
And perhaps that is what hope really is. Not pretending everything is fine. Not ignoring the scale of the challenges ahead. But continuing to care for each other and act together anyway.
This week, as part of A Million Acts of Hope, we’re thinking about the small acts that help build stronger, healthier and more connected communities.
What acts of hope will you take today?
Kate Metcalf, Co-director, Wen
Kate has over 20 years’ experience developing community and international networks within international development and environmental organisations with a focus on gender and social justice. Kate leads Wen’s Feminist Green New Deal project aiming to ensure that women, racialised and marginalised groups are central to the green economy.
