As a social science student, it is often that I get stuck in a negative headspace. Whether that be from learning more about climate change, colonialism, capitalism, or something entirely different, it's hard to not let these negative topics affect me. The world's gonna burn and people treat each other horribly in the hopes of profit -- a good mindset to finish college and go off to the real world with, right? While being abroad, I've had the opportunity to change this mindset by meeting people working towards good within my field of study.
One of these instances was meeting with The Resilient Cities Network at their headquarters in Rotterdam. This is an NGO that is focused on creating more sustainable cities and infrastructure networks that protect and serve the community in our new complex world. Starting with a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation and 100 focus cities, this team has grown to have over 4,000 projects in their portfolio spanning cities across 6 continents. Meeting with this team, I realized that there is a more positive outlook in my sights. Instead of focusing on all the negative aspects, they utilize this as data to try and innovate out of issues humans have created by connecting cities to information, investments, and on-site plans. They faciliate conversations on coming together to learn from each other's struggles and inspirations in order to adapt and grow after chronic stresses (like poverty or aging infrastructure) and acute shocks (like Covid-19 and natural diasters). They inspired me by showing that nothing's all bad and that there are people and organizations working to undo our corrupt world, one small project at a time.
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