"Hope is the thing with feathers, That perches in the soul"

As anyone who knows me can attest, I'm worrier, and tend to carry the woes of the world on my shoulders which is, to be frank, utterly exhausting and completely unhelpful (not to mention somewhat self-indulgent). Anyway, I love things that make me feel motivated, remind me of how I want to live my life, and what I want to contribute to the world. I'm a huge fan of doing something tangible on an individual level - some of the most amazing development projects I've seen have been small scale. One orphanage, one village, one hospital. But they make all the difference. So today I wanted to share a few videos that have made an impression on me. I can't claim to know much about the organisations behind them, nor their working practices, but the hopes expressed in these videos has re-motivated me at a time when I've started to feel overwhelmed.

First, FOUR YEARS. GO. I always find a sense of urgency to be a huge motivation for me. This definitely does the trick.

Next, I'm a HUGE believer in girl power (Spice Girls were my era after all!) and I really truly believe that a teenage girl is one of the most powerful drivers of change our world has.

And this last one. Not a video full of hope, but beautiful and hugely disturbing and one I'd recommend everyone watch. I looked around the bathroom this morning and all I could see was plastic. There are more videos which explain the work of Midway and include trailers for their upcoming film at their website.