Jo Roberts – CEO Wilderness Foundation UK

Growing up in Apartheid South Africa and from a politically aware family, encouraged me to be deeply interested in people, justice, politics, inhumanity/humanity and the meaning of life in general.

I could not be bland, or disinterested in life, because each time I looked out of a window I was confronted with the reality of SA and what was going on between its people. At 16 I remember hearing about the riots in Soweto on the radio, and talking to girls at my school about what we could do to help, whilst feeling disconnected from the reality of the situation, as we were in an all white, privileged private school and had never met with our black 16 year old counterparts in the townships, had an opportunity to understand each other, support each other, or be able to work together. We were so far apart socially and geographically we could have been on different planets.

I could only imagine what could have been possible if we could have come together to look at our joint futures and what we needed to do together to make our world just and sustainable?

I realised that understanding other people’s realities is crucial to a solid world view, and how important it is to bring people together, to dream, plan, think and work alongside each other, with a common purpose and to draw on each others’ strengths and ideed, differences.

Thirty or so years on, living in the UK and a mother of a teenage daughter, meeting her friends and networks, and also working with highly vulnerable teenage girls at risk in our TurnAround programme created new perceptions and knowledge of their world and priorities. In conversations, seeing how they thought and what was important to them, really started to make me question and deeply care about what goes on around them, and how equipped they are to face the future, the pressures they face, and how so often their self care and dignity could be at stake in the search for approval, popularity and affirmation. The virtual world was all consuming and peace was never found with the constant buzzing of texts, BBMs, Facebook, etc. They needed to see something ‘else’ that could to stimulate them, that could be fun and feel good, but also ‘did’ good. Life is a gift, we choose what to do with it……

Running an environmental charity was at the same time focusing my thoughts on the future of the planet and its passengers, and the challenges that the next generation will face in terms of the march of climate change, loss of biodiversity, conflict for resources such as water and energy..real questions of survival. So I kept asking the questions :

• Where are the leaders of the next generation
• What do young people care about?   Have we scared them off with bleak projections and pushed them to put their heads in the sand?
• How can we support them them to discover their own pilot lights of passion for something that matters deeply to them?
•  Is much of their learning virtual and within comfort zones?
• What challenges them?

In the busy-ness of their worlds, when do they get time to be mindful, to think deeply to focus on what is really important to them? For within each human being, I believe, is that light – it just needs to be dug out – and once lit can support a passion to make some kind of change happen, to make a difference, to live life ‘deliberately’ as Henry Thoreau wrote.

Wild Swans will give them this, and more.