The Shape of Hope

Someone asked me recently what I was hopeful for, and it got me thinking. How does hope show up in my life, my work, and the people around me? Since then, I’ve been on a steadfast search to understand this often misunderstood emotion.

“Hope is not a strategy. But it is a force that, when shared, can change a life.”

We’ve all heard the maxim, “Hope is not a strategy.” As a strategist, I agree. It’s not. But where does hope belong day to day and how does it shape our movements and mindset? I’ve wondered how we can nurture it in a world filled with a cacophony of quarrelsome opinions, where the noise so often drowns out tenderness, mercy, and care, both for one another and for ourselves. 

In 2019, I traveled to Kakuma Refugee Camp and had an encounter with hope that expanded my world.

Kakuma Refugee Camp sits in one of the driest and most remote regions of northwestern Kenya. The temperatures climb past forty degrees, and the air carries fine dust that clings to skin and settles over everything. Rain is rare, but when it comes, it floods fast, washing away what little people have built.

And yet, the horizon, full of colour, feels endless and in perpetual motion with the moon and sun often sharing the same sky at dusk and dawn.

It was in this harsh landscape that I met a young girl named Nyakim, who had never stepped beyond the camp’s borders. There, she came to understand that her life had value, and with a quiet confidence she knew that education was her way forward. Her request was simple and anchored in hope.

In that unforgiving place, I came to see how difficult it is for so many children to reach a classroom, and how deeply they long for the gift of learning, a fundamental right for every human.

Now, five years later, Nyakim’s determination has carried her through school and has become the catalyst for opening doors so that many more children can learn.

As we prepare for Nyakim’s transition from junior to senior high, and her likely move to the big city of Nairobi, I’m reminded that hope is a forward-looking emotion. It’s rooted in possibility. It lives not in certainty but in the creative tension between what is and what could be. You may not know how things will unfold, but you remain open to the chance, the idea, the belief that they’ll get better.

When I first traveled to Kilifi and found myself surrounded by so many children hungry for an education, hope was not only my guide, it called to me. Having witnessed Nyakim’s growth, I began to see the same possibilities reflected in the eyes of every family and child I met. And yet, I found myself wondering how I could take on what felt like an overwhelming project, at the time, working largely on my own in an unfamiliar country, thousands of miles from home. Some in my community questioned the decision and wondered why I would choose to invest my time and energy in such a remote and unknown place.

“Hope is a practice, not a feeling you hold.””

It was in those questions of doubt and distance that I began to understand how hope truly works, not as a feeling to hold, but as a practice. To live with hope is not to deny difficulty, but to keep your eyes open to possibility even when the path is uncertain. This is not just optimism; it’s an orientation, a way of seeing and moving through the world.

In a world where people seem to be losing hope, day by day, I find myself wanting to offer a remedy. For me, that remedy is found in service to others. There is no greater antidote to helplessness than helping someone else, no greater comfort for sorrow than bringing gladness to another. What makes life bearable, even beautiful, despite the cruelties of chance, is the quiet persistence of mercy.

I believe the human experience is limited without a willingness to care for one another, the courage to give, and the hope that change is possible

These small acts of care, showing up, listening, believing in another's possibility are the threads that hold us together. They rise above the noise and insist, again and again, that the world is still full of kindness. To hear that voice makes a difference. To be that voice changes everything.

In Kilifi, Kenya, hope takes the shape of a school uniform, a full lunch, a child who dares to dream. Through The Nyakim Project, it lives in every student who walks into a classroom believing that their story isn’t written yet.

Hope may not be a strategy, but it is a force that when shared, can change a life.

Karen Francis