The new generation gives me hope

(Please note that this text is translated by Open AI as I write my all my peas in Dutch)

Before I completely changed my life, hope was also hard to find for me. I didn’t realize enough that the glasses you wear also determine how the world appears to you. But now I have found hope again. Through the peasmakers who work tirelessly for a better world. Through people I meet along the way who always want to help, who are kind. But especially the young people who come into my life give me hope for the future.

Because I meet them on almost every farm: young people from all over Europe who volunteer for months because it makes them happy and because they believe that’s what needs to happen now. Twentysomethings who quit their job at a corporate to work with their hands in the soil. Who no longer have a fixed home and don’t aspire to one either. Young people who have a completely different perspective on the world than I did at their age.

I see a quest for meaningful work, for a combination of working with your hands and your head. Craving for real connection. Take Hungarian Encsi (with red, blue, white shirt). She works voluntarily with her boyfriend on regenerative farms to learn as much as possible about all the new forms of agriculture. Because it’s her dream to start a food forest in her own country and thus change the world single-handedly.

Or French Nina, 16 years old (blue sweater). She was in despair because the current state of the world makes her depressed. She decides to take action and travels by car, train, and boat to Portugal to work for a while at the syntropic farm Terra Sintropica. That experience finally gives her the feeling that she can contribute to a better world with her own hands. And she takes that back home (and to school).

I notice that there is an immense change happening on many levels, which we may not yet see or feel on a daily basis. And yes, perhaps it’s still the undercurrent, but wow, this movement fills me with hope.