Tag: Hope Week

WP_Post Object ( [ID] => 9889 [post_author] => 15 [post_date] => 2026-01-08 00:16:00 [post_date_gmt] => 2026-01-08 00:16:00 [post_content] =>

While reporting on climate change isn’t always hopeful, the women I've met along the way are forging a path forward for intergenerational resilience.

In the dim flicker of a kerosene lantern on a fog-wreathed houseboat, I watched Nazia Qasim’s reed-scarred hands pierce threadbare fabric with her needle, weaving colored abayas as her eyes fixed on Dal Lake’s silt-choked horizon, diesel haze mingling with the sour tang of rotting lotus stems, where vibrant beds once bloomed.

I’ve heard endless tales from Nazia—and Qudisa, and Bano, and their sisters—about how the lake’s relentless shrinkage has mirrored their own lives’ contracting. Yet the women have overcome: As the lake withers, under absent snows and dying streams, the water now polluted and undrinkable, they have found new work and purpose through their weaving. For hours last January, I watched their hands move in the lantern’s glow, transforming loss into livelihood. This sisterhood, which once thrived on an endless, ancestral bounty of lotus, water chestnuts, and fish, now scraps stitched tight, the women’s quiet knots a fierce stand against the fade.

As a climate reporter based largely out of India, I am often tasked with telling stories on the frontlines of disaster. I have crouched in Pampore’s parched Karewas at dawn, watching farmers Farida Jan and Snobar Ahad recount the decline of saffron, a visceral dirge for disappearing traditions I could feel in the cracked earth underfoot. I’ve seen women shoulder jerry cans under a merciless sun, irrigating wilted bulbs past cobwebbed government drip lines, turning the world’s most prized spices into frantic wagers against the sky, where one failed season means debt for entire villages. And in countless moments, I’ve watched with growing frustration how easily the world abandons the Global South, which disproportionately bears the brunt of climate change, and how rarely the countries most responsible seem to face the same consequences.

This work necessitates exhaustive fieldwork in fragile ecosystems, sifting through scarce data amid conflict, and confronting the grief of vanishing landscapes and livelihoods. But in my writing on the realities of climate change, I’ve also made a conscious effort to find stories of resilience, rather than just stories of despair. Stories that not only show there are still people who haven’t given up on the fight, but who have made a meaningful difference in changing the tides.

These changemakers are often women.

Perhaps because of this, my work has always felt inherently hopeful: Despite climate theft splintering families—stealing not just saffron yields and Dal Lake’s bounties, but the heartbeat of a country’s soul—these women persist as resilient guardians, weaving their survival with fierce tenderness from the shattered threads.

This has also made it all the more important to me that I get their stories right. As a writer, I prioritize women’s agency and consent, letting them narrate their own stories however I can. This approach shatters poverty tropes, spotlighting their resilience and innovation over the victimhood stereotypes that dominate mainstream coverage of rural Indian women. It also imbues my work with deeper meaning, in hopes that harmful narratives might begin to shift as more of these women’s stories are allowed to take up space.

Over the years, I’ve chased India’s climate fury, from Kashmir’s vanishing glaciers to Maharashtra’s cracked fields and Tamil Nadu’s drowned coasts. And the women I’ve met along the way light a fire in me: Their grit isn’t survival, it’s rebirth for a warming world.

“When I got married, nobody asked my choices,” Kamla told me on her daughter’s wedding day, now nearly two years ago. “Today, I ensure hers.”

The message was loud and clear: Economic independence is agency in a patriarchal script. And for Kamla, it had allowed her to reclaim this agency on her own terms, and to give her daughter a chance at a better life.

I first met her in early 2024, while reporting my story “A Farm of One’s Own” for The Conversationalist. Kamla is a farmer from Khajraha Khurd’s sunbaked fields, in parched Bundelkhand’s Jhansi district, Uttar Pradesh. She leads local farming techniques to combat drought, something that has helped pull families in the region out of poverty, proving climate adaptation thrives on female ingenuity.

In the days we spent together, I crouched beside Kamla as she worked, enveloped in the mud’s earthy scent. Her eyes were sweat-stung, her fingers plunged into the sun-warmed soil. As she crunched freshly picked beetroot, she explained to me how she uses neem traps to ward off pests amid erratic rains. Her father-in-law burst out laughing, teasing her for explaining farming to me like she knew anything at all.

But it was clear she knew more than he understood. When the global coronavirus pandemic rapidly swept across India, some of the most vulnerable, and climate-vulnerable, migrant women were robbed of their work, Kamla included. She not only found meaningful work in the aftermath, but self-reliance, trading callused hands for hoe and seed, wresting millet, broccoli, and lentils from her own organic farm.

Kamla’s resilience was magical to witness. I spent many days with her, seeing how she started her day, plunging into compost heaps steaming with kitchen scraps and dung, spreading the fertilizer across her garden. Watching her wipe soil from her weathered palms, spinach bunch in hand, I saw her rooted at last from laborer to earth-tender, peace in every leaf, life hers again.

In the afternoon, she tiptoed through the fields and quickly kneaded the dough for lunch and put it on the tawa, slapping it thin and golden and slathering the sizzling ghee, serving it with a tin cup of frothy chai brewed strong over a chulha fire. We ate together in the rows of a multi-cropped farm, the air humming with neem leaves. This wasn't just a meal; it was a window into resilience in motion, women and girls weaving nourishment from the land. Nearby, her great-grandmother sat cross-legged on the earthen floor, her gnarled fingers deftly cleaning a mound of fresh red chillies in the sun—plucking stems, wiping dust, and muttering local songs on the front porch of her house, a visual treat to witness a silent hymn to preservation in a world of fleeting harvests.

As we ate, I thought of these women, whose callused hands not only yield the wisdom and knowledge of saplings and sickles, but carry it forward, forging an intergenerational resilience against climate chaos that exists beyond immediate harvests, or even lifetimes—ensuring the next generation endures.

Over the years, I’ve met countless women enacting change like Kamla, often without credit or acknowledgement. In India’s northern Haryana state, I met Sunita Dahiya, a woman pioneering eco-friendly menstrual products, and training rural women to produce organic pads that decompose rapidly, slashing microplastic pollution and the burden of billions of plastic disposables in landfills each year. In north Kashmir’s Bandipora district, I met Phula Bano, who manages large herds of wild dogs, cattle, and horses through daily treks in the Himalayas, helping to sustain a low-carbon, resilient ecosystem.

For an early story for The Conversationalist, I also met the beekeeper Towseefa Rizvi—a living embodiment of sisterhood in action. As the first female beekeeper in Ganderbal district, Kashmir, Towseefa has demonstrated, again and again, how one woman’s rise can create pathways for others to join her. Within her community, she also demonstrated that beekeeping could be a profitable path, as well as a productive response to ecological despair. Today, she still trains and supervises village women in the tender art of queen-rearing and swarm management, and sells local honey through various haats and online.

When I visited her home in Bandipora district in north Kashmir, I saw apple groves dotted with buzzing apiaries in her backyard, as she coaxed her bees into new, modern hives. She viewed her bees as family, and over the years, dedicated herself to learning about the restoration of biodiversity, pollination of resilient crops, and climate vagaries.

Her journey was also proof that true climate hope lies not in flashy summits, but more often, in one woman’s quiet and relentless work.

Centering hope in my reporting, of course, hasn’t saved me from the realities of writing about and from regions affected by climate change.

What started as whispers of women-led mangrove safaris while researching another story last year eventually evolved into a gruelling quest, marked by relentless weather delays and elusive sources. For months, I chased the story of Sindhudurg’s mangrove guardians—fierce women from one of Maharashtra’s pioneering women-led self-help groups (SHGs). And for months, I wondered if the story I hoped to tell would ever come to fruition.

Weather changes were unforgiving foes. Monsoons flooded coastal paths and stranded my sources with switched-off phones for weeks. Out of anxiety, I’d chase them via voicemail. Officials also proved phantoms as the network dropped along eroding coastlines.

It wasn’t easy to convince the women to entrust me with their stories; their promises fading with each storm surge and postponed boat trip. But visiting the coast and sharing chai in salt-lashed homes finally broke the ice last fall, and resulted in my final piece from the year, “Guardians of the Mangroves”, about how Maharashtra’s crab farmers are spearheading women-led coastal restoration amid local climate chaos.

Late in my visit, I stood with farmer Sonali Sunil Acharekar amid the hushed mangroves, her rough hands parting their roots in silent vigil, as cries of herons and egrets filled the skies. She paused mid-story about lost fish, her fingers sifting through the silty tides to snare a scuttling fiddler crab.

She grinned. “See? Even the birds know we’re guardians.”

I felt a spark of wonder that, despite rough weather nearly killing this story, I could still bring these women’s unbreakable strength into the light. As we enter a new year, I am ending the last with gratitude for their efforts, and the stories these women have shared. I hope, too, I continue to push myself to amplify excluded voices, to craft stories of climate hope that counter the despair-dominating headlines, and to show women as stewards of India’s Global South.

When we lose sight of hope, we risk nihilism that doesn’t allow us to see ingenuity amidst climate chaos—something women in the Global South have delivered time and time again, and something that has made me feel consistently hopeful in my work. While reporting on climate change itself isn’t always hopeful, there is always hope—and at the center of that hope are the women who bend, rise, and persist, their strength illuminating the fragile edge where water meets earth.

[post_title] => Planting the Seeds of Climate Hope [post_excerpt] => While reporting on climate change isn’t always hopeful, the women I've met along the way are forging a path forward for intergenerational resilience. [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => closed [ping_status] => closed [post_password] => [post_name] => hope-week-climate-change-resilience-action-profile-economic-independence-global-south-india [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2026-01-08 07:58:50 [post_modified_gmt] => 2026-01-08 07:58:50 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://conversationalist.org/?p=9889 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => post [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw )

January 8, 2026January 8, 2026

Planting the Seeds of Climate Hope

by Aliya Bashir

WP_Post Object ( [ID] => 9937 [post_author] => 15 [post_date] => 2026-01-07 07:35:47 [post_date_gmt] => 2026-01-07 07:35:47 [post_content] =>

Why Ireland's Basic Income for the Arts program is just the first step in better supporting the country's artists.

In 2022, visual artist Elinor O’Donovan was working as a receptionist in Cork, Ireland, when she began to receive the Basic Income for the Arts (BIA) stipend. The Irish government had launched the program that year as a way to address the country’s unstable arts sector, which had left many artists without job security and consistent financial earnings—O’Donovan included. At the time she applied, she'd just graduated from university and was living with her parents as she tried to figure out the next steps for her career. When she found out she’d been selected from a pool of over 9,000 other applicants for the BIA, it was life-changing. As one of 2,000 artists receiving a weekly income of €325 over a three-year period, O’Donovan was able to quit her job and move to Dublin to make art full-time.

“The BIA has allowed me to be a bit more brave with the stuff that I make,” she tells The Conversationalist. “It allowed me to make whatever I want, and not feel as if I have to justify why it's important to a funding body.”

According to a cost-benefit analysis published by the Department of Culture, Communications and Sport last September, the BIA has been a resounding success for beneficiaries, and Irish society at large. The report revealed that recipients were able to dedicate an additional four hours per week to art-making, and that the program “strengthened artists’ professional autonomy, capacity for creative work, and attachment to the arts sector.” Moreover, for every €1 of public money invested in the pilot, the country received €1.39 in return—a value that accounts for an increase in earnings generated from art-making as well as an increase in public engagement with the arts. In short: Giving money to artists, with no strings attached, was demonstrably profitable.

For O’Donovan, income from the BIA not only gave her more time to make art, but provided her with newfound financial stability, something that affected every part of her life. She had more time to cook for herself, joined a gym, and for the first time, was able to afford to go to therapy. She was also finally able to plan for the future.

“I was 26 when I started receiving [the BIA], and I was able to start a pension fund,” she says. “Just having that fallback [was a relief], knowing that I would receive an income no matter what happened; if I got sick, I would still be able to pay my bills, pay my rent. It has really been transformative for my well-being.”

Importantly, the BIA has also allowed her to create opportunities for other artists: O’Donovan’s ability to explore filmmaking, something she was afforded because of the stipend, meant she could create new jobs in the field. “Having financial stability from the basic income means that I've been able to hire other people to work with me,” O’Donovan says. “So there's even been a kind of trickle down of the basic income to other artists and other creatives in Ireland.”

For artists around the world, the program has also offered one hopeful potential solution for a global arts sector severely hit with funding cuts and political uncertainties over the last few years. But while things have taken a recent downturn, the financial instability of the arts has been a major problem for decades, if not centuries, something that likely explains the growing admiration for the BIA around the world.

In a capitalist society, creative work is not valued as a productive or profitable field, which often means that artists are being underpaid for their work, if they’re paid at all. Creativity and art-making require passion and time, two resources that are generally scarce in an economic system more concerned with profit than beauty. Often, this forces workers to abandon or sideline their creative work in favor of taking a non-creative job that will provide financial stability. But a program like the BIA provides an alternative model, giving artists the financial foundation to create without the stress of figuring out how they will pay their rent or bills.

Joining other basic income pilot programs around the world, the BIA demonstrates that providing workers with financial stability first allows them to thrive, increasing a country’s worker satisfaction, contributing to better mental health, and resulting in higher housing stability, by supporting people pursuing their preferred fields of work.

Even the program’s most ardent supporters, however, argue that the BIA is only the start of a more stable arts field. In Ireland, the arts generate €1.5 billion in income each year, but according to Praxis, the artists’ union of Ireland, artists still face “extremely challenging economic conditions.” In an open letter published in September, the group cited that 50.7% of artists in Ireland still live in Enforced Deprivation, compared to 15.7% of the general population. (The Irish Central Statistics Office defines Enforced Deprivation as when a household experiences two or more of 11 national deprivation items, such as being unable to replace worn out furniture, or being unable to afford a drink or a meal with friends once a month.) The BIA, then, should be seen as just the first step in a bigger effort to make the industry more sustainable.

“It has always been precarious,” writer, editor, and Praxis policy director Michaele Cutaya tells The Conversationalist. “I've never managed to make a living off just my art income, [and] my situation, my difficulties, are not isolated instances.” As a union representative, Cutaya helped advise the government on the BIA’s design; but despite its success, she emphasizes that the country still has a long way to go.

“Quite a large part of the economy relies on the work of artists,” she says, citing the profit the arts brings to the hospitality sector in Dublin as one example. But very little money generated by the arts sector actually goes to artists, a discrepancy that continues to grow despite the BIA. In the last three years, work opportunities have diminished throughout the sector, a trend worrying to union leadership and artists alike. “Access to public funding remains the main source of income for artists, mainly through the Arts Council,” Cutaya continues. “[But] I find that the number of chances of getting your work selected has gone down because essentially there seems to be a lot more people applying [to public funding].”

This may explain why some are concerned that the BIA will become “the shiny object” of policies, while other issues in the sector go ignored, like unregulated pay, the use of AI, and the still-growing lack of opportunities.

“There's a lot of issues and they’re not doing much about it,” says actor Christophe Lombardi, who was in the control group of the BIA pilot program, where he received one yearly payment of €650 as compensation for participating, rather than the weekly stipend of €325. (The results of Lombardi’s control group were used so researchers could better understand how the BIA helps artists over a longer period of time, in comparison with those not receiving it.)

Emphasizing other issues he would like to see addressed, Lombardi points to Gayanne Potter, a voice actor whose voice was used without permission by ScotRail to create AI-generated platform announcements in Scotland. “We are facing all the [same] problems [in Ireland]. So I don't want [the government] to use the BIA as an excuse to pretend to help the artists, but behind the scenes, not [do] anything about the rest of the issues.”

Last April, the Irish Creative Industries Forum (ICIF) wrote to the Irish government requesting measures for the protection of artists from AI, and the enforcement of copyright infringement laws against the misuse of the technology. As of yet, however, the government has yet to implement any AI regulation policies in response.

Still, there is a widespread recognition that the BIA is a net positive, and can and should be used to help address many of the existing issues in the industry. In its letter, the ICIF requested that the BIA be extended to artists affected by job loss caused by AI. Across Ireland, unionized artists are currently campaigning for the BIA’s permanent expansion. “It does make a difference, obviously,” Lombardi says. “Because it's hard to stay creative, to keep things going, while you can't keep a roof over your head. There was [an] upswing in mental health—everything's better.”

In Praxis’ open letter, the union demanded for the program’s extension for an indefinite period of time, and for the income to be indexed to inflation. Additionally, the union urged the government to expand eligibility to include previously omitted art forms, like performance artists, socially-engaged artists, craftspeople, and designers.

Arguing that the BIA pays for itself in economic returns, Praxis warns this expansion should not come at the expense of other arts agencies, which also deserve resources, attention, and support. “The arts sector needs more funding, not less,” the letter reads.

O’Donovan agrees. Given her experience, she says the BIA should be one part of a “bigger ecosystem” that helps the arts sector thrive, and allows artists to be fairly compensated for their work. “I think what people don't understand about being an artist is how much work you do that goes unpaid,” she says. “Having the basic income means that I'm still able to live and I'm still able to work.”

The pilot program was originally set to end in December 2025, but has now been extended to February 2026. From September 2026, it will be a permanent program in the country, although the government has not defined eligibility criteria or the number of recipients moving forward. In an email to The Conversationalist, a spokesperson for the Department of Culture, Communications and Sport writes that “details such as the duration, eligibility and selection method… have not yet been decided.”

Cutaya says, so far, they’ve also been left in the dark about the expanded program’s specifics, something especially concerning because, while the program was initially launched under a progressive coalition government, the current government is conservative. “We know very little at this stage,” Cutaya says, but adds that Praxis is holding out hope their input will be taken into consideration as the program evolves.

This lack of transparency has also left current BIA recipients in the dark, unsure of how they will support themselves in the gap between February and September. “Realistically I'll just have to start working again,” O’Donovan says. “It feels like a shame. I'm really grateful to have had these three years where I've been able to work full-time as an artist because very few people who aren't on the basic income can afford that.”

Reflecting on how public arts funding is the first to be cut during economic hardship, Lombardi wishes that society at large would recognize the inherent value of artists’ labor for the mental health and wellbeing of the general population. “Imagine life without art,” Lombardi says, pointing to how artists played a key role in keeping people sane during the pandemic. “Imagine for six months, there is no art. You can't watch stuff, you can't read stuff, you can't go out and see stuff. You can't sing, there's no music, there's nothing. The only thing is work and sports. That's it. The decrease in mental health would be astounding, people would go around the bend.”

Having access to the most basic resources to be able to live while working in your preferred profession shouldn’t be a privilege for the few: Everyone deserves what the BIA has provided to artists for the last three years. But as too many places proverbially edge closer to the dystopia Lombardi describes, the BIA might be seen as a place to begin to reimagine how we value and fund the arts moving forward. Whether it’s an album, a painting, a play, a movie, a live band—whatever your preferred mode of expression—the arts remind us of the wonders of life, forcing us to see the beauty in between work shifts and growth indicators. Fair pay to the workers who deliver those reminders to the general population, then, is urgent; otherwise, we risk a world without fascination. The findings of the BIA pilot reveal the systemic flaws of how society treats its artists, and beyond the stipend, point to more hopeful solutions on the path to a world where art and artists are truly valued.

[post_title] => Painting a More Hopeful Future [post_excerpt] => Why Ireland's Basic Income for the Arts program is just the first step in better supporting the country's artists. [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => closed [ping_status] => closed [post_password] => [post_name] => hope-week-universal-basic-income-for-the-arts-artists-ireland [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2026-01-07 07:35:53 [post_modified_gmt] => 2026-01-07 07:35:53 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://conversationalist.org/?p=9937 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => post [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw )

January 7, 2026January 7, 2026

Painting a More Hopeful Future

by Nicole Froio

WP_Post Object ( [ID] => 9910 [post_author] => 15 [post_date] => 2026-01-06 06:39:32 [post_date_gmt] => 2026-01-06 06:39:32 [post_content] =>

How committing to a weekly neighborhood potluck has both fed and strengthened my community.

There’s a certain serendipity that happens at a potluck. Foods that have never mingled together find themselves side by side: jambalaya in a crockpot, a cardboard pizza box, a plastic tub of Trader Joe’s hummus, a platter of gluten-free brownies. None of it really makes sense when scooped together onto a plate, but all of the flavors blend like fast friends—and if you’re lucky, oftentimes, the people do, too.

It’s another Monday night, which for me, means another neighborhood potluck. Every week, a group of us meets in the same grassy area by the river in our neighborhood outside of Providence, Rhode Island. This week, I brought a pesto pasta salad with random veggies I found in our fridge; last week, it was leftover ribs my husband made over the weekend; the week before, a bag of chips and salsa. As we set up shop on a foldout table, I can see the curious faces of people driving and biking by, wondering what the heck is going on. But for us, it’s just another Monday night. People start trickling in around 5:30pm and stay until the sun goes down. We catch up on each other’s lives, and watch the kids run around while helping ourselves to a second plate. Then, we pack up our things and say our goodbyes, knowing we’ll see each other again next week.

While these gatherings now feel like a staple in my life, I first learned the magic of weekly potlucks a few years ago, in my old neighborhood in New Orleans, Louisiana. It was 2022, and we were still feeling a bit socially raw, fresh out of our Covid bubbles. A neighbor friend started a group text, inviting us to gather every Monday at the playground for a whatever-you-have-lying-around potluck dinner and a good hang.

At first, the weekly cadence sounded like… a lot. Weekly? Really? Could my social battery handle it?

Yet after the first few months, it started feeling like an important ritual, and after the first year, it felt like a sacred space. The regular cadence was key. It allowed us to check in on each other and get to know our week-to-week rhythms. I could ask how Jen’s doctor’s appointment went last week, or if Joel had recipe-tested the chicken and dumplings he was planning for his upcoming popup restaurant. When I wanted someone to be my accountability-buddy to do that yoga class I kept swearing I’d do, I could ask if anyone else had been looking for an accountability-buddy, too. And with the standing weekly gatherings, all of this could happen in an intentional way, our commitment to a weekly meal slowly blossoming into something more.

After spending a couple of years social-distancing and mostly avoiding group gatherings, our neighborhood potlucks also felt like a joyful and much-needed form of social fitness, something scientifically proven to be just as important to our well-being as physical exercise. Maybe you’ve heard of Harvard's 85-year happiness study? It started in 1938 and followed 724 participants from their teens to old age. The participants regularly answered questions about their health and habits, their income and relationships, their joys and disappointments. The study also incorporated insights from their spouses and 1,300 of their descendants.

What did the study find to be the most important factor in determining a long and happy life? Strong, supportive relationships. Not cholesterol levels, or how many kettlebells you’ve lifted (although those things are important, too!)—but genuine human connection. It was a stronger indicator for happiness than even genetic predispositions, social class, or IQ.

This was also precisely what many of us were so starved for back in 2022. As the weeks went by, it felt like we had cracked the code to maintaining a genuine closeness with our neighbors. I also realized it wasn’t just the shared meal that was feeding us and allowing for deeper relationships to grow: It was our commitment to having it in the first place.

In New Orleans, I experienced the fruits of this firsthand. A group of us kept showing up, kept checking in on each other, kept extending the invite to other neighbor friends, and kept feeling the goodness of our Monday merriment spilling into the rest of the week. It was something to look forward to, something that consistently got our weeks started on a hopeful note. The Sunday scaries felt almost cured by the Monday potluck magic.

It was also a weekly reminder that, no matter what else was happening in the world, we were all still here, still showing up, and still feeding each other—with food, with friendship, with community, with care.

This commitment never felt burdensome, but instead, like a newfound necessity. In the age of TikToking your way down the street and scrolling in bed until you fall asleep, people are overconnected but undercommitted. Relationships, however, are built on commitment—and at least according to the Harvard study’s findings, that means our happiness is built on commitment, too. It’s a muscle to exercise like any other, and when we allow it to atrophy, our communities tend to suffer. But when we put the effort into consistently exercising it, our relationships and our communities begin to bloom.

It still impresses me that we managed to meet up every week for over a year, even with small kids and busy jobs and all the rest. I believe a big part of this was probably the fact that we met in a public space (the neighborhood playground), that was walking distance for all of us (no driving required), which also meant that nobody had to host (no need to clean your house).

The not-hosting part felt especially important. Nobody had to stress about people coming over and nobody had to deal with washing the dishes since we BYO’d our own plates and cutlery. We also never felt the pressure to bring anything fancy, a rule we established early on. One week it might be a bag of chips and the next it might be leftover birthday cake and maybe the next it would be homemade enchiladas if you had a little more time to cook. It all evens out in the potluck wash. And when everyone brings something, everyone leaves full.

When I moved to Rhode Island in 2024, I knew I had to keep my potluck muscles active in order to keep this little bit of magic alive, too.

I started a Whatsapp group and kept adding new neighbor friends to join as I met them. I scheduled the first potluck as a test run, just a couple months after we’d moved into our house. Given the big turnout (close to 40 people), I knew it could be a regular thing, so we started it up in earnest in the summer when the weather was more reliably outdoor-friendly. My husband and I began sending out a reminder on Monday mornings. And for the regular crew that started showing up each week, and telling other people to join, the potluck magic alchemized just as it had in New Orleans. I felt especially proud when I started seeing people I didn’t recognize who had heard about it through the neighborhood grapevine.

Every Monday, we’d arrive at the park with our foldout table and gingham tablecloth (adding a tablecloth instantly makes any gathering feel more special). For a quick second, I’d worry that nobody would show up. I’d feel a bit self-conscious, then I’d remember that even if nobody came, I’d still be outside eating with my family, which is a gift on its own.

I wouldn’t take it personally if people couldn’t make it (although a younger version of myself probably would have). But sure enough, people always did, and a mishmash of dishes would start appearing on the table. Hot dogs and mini quiche? Sure, why not! Barbecue ribs and a mountain of edamame? I mean, yeah, let’s do this! The neighborhood kids would run around on the grass and inevitably start piling on top of each other, like a Polaroid snapshot from 1995. No iPads or AI or any other tech-y shenanigans. Just some good ole wholesome potluck fun.

After a full summer of weekly potlucks, however, it became clear that one major difference between New Orleans and New England is, well, winter. In New Orleans, we could keep the weekly cadence humming along for most of the year. The summer heat and storm season did force some cancelations, but in Rhode Island, the days started growing dark by 6 p.m. and it was puffy coat season by Halloween, so we had to “close for the season” in October.

“I really miss our Monday potlucks,” neighbor friends have told me recently. Some have even offered to host in their homes, but this feels like breaking a key tenet. Removing the hosting pressure is a big part of what keeps our potlucks running so smoothly and solidly, so inclusively and so stress-freely.

While I know it’ll come back in full force once the weather warms up and the sunlight stretches back into dinner hours, I can still feel my potluck muscle craving exercise. We’ve been looking into community spaces that might be willing to host us during the winter, such as the library or the masonic center a few blocks away. Or the old-school bowling alley, which has some tables in the back. We’ve also been brainstorming other ways to stay connected during the colder, darker months. Perhaps a weekly walking club around the neighborhood? Or a soup swap (like a cookie swap, but for soup)?

But I also know that rest is important when it comes to exercise, too. And it’s during this wintry off-season that I’m discovering how much the seedlings of our summer potluck friendships have sprouted. People are still texting each other to check in, still asking each other for HVAC repair advice and babysitter recommendations. And thankfully I still have my accountability buddy checking in on how we might move our bodies this winter — she just suggested a 30-day “gentle burn workout” with short daily videos, asking if we could text each other once we’ve finished each as motivation and a healthy bit of peer pressure.

A potluck, of course, isn’t the only way to nurture and maintain our relationships, but it’s one that’s made me feel particularly hopeful. Commitment begets commitment, and makes the muscle stronger, something we can feel even when it’s not in use.

Bringing people together on a regular basis is also a reminder that small rituals can add up to something much bigger. In the months since our last potluck, our Providence community has been deeply hurting following the horrific mass shooting that took place at Brown University in December. We’ve been checking in on our neighbors, and feeling a wide range of emotions: grief, sadness, anger, anxiety, and heartbreak. But as we continue to grieve, our commitment to holding space for each other gives me hope that we’ll live another day, and share another meal, and continue to show up for each other, again and again.

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January 6, 2026January 6, 2026

A Helping of Something Hopeful

by Erin Zimmer Strenio

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How door-knocking for Mayor Mamdani restored my faith in the power of organized people to defeat organized money.

The thought of knocking on a stranger’s door once filled me with dread. It sounded uncomfortable at best, and potentially humiliating, or dangerous, at worst. What if someone slammed the door in my face or said something memorably vicious? I’m a 43-year-old white woman, raised in an upper-middle-class home in Buffalo, New York. My parents, respectively descended from Eastern European Jews and Sicilian Catholics, discussed politics and occasionally attended protests, but knocking on strangers’ doors wasn’t a big part of my childhood.

Yet in the last eight years, as I’ve gotten older and more politically active, I've begun to grasp the value of pushing through that discomfort. In April, before the summer’s Democratic primary, I started knocking on doors for then-New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, and continued through Election Day in November. Altogether, I knocked on approximately 2,000 doors, usually with a partner, which was more fun and comfortable, if less efficient, than going alone.

Door-knocking shifts for Mamdani regularly drew dozens of New Yorkers, even in terrible weather, and on Monday and Tuesday nights, when fewer people are motivated to go out after work. I mostly knocked on doors in Brooklyn, where I live, but my fellow canvassers came from all over the city. Some were ideologically motivated, while others had concrete, pragmatic reasons for showing up, like the woman I met who joined a canvass because “the bus I took to get here took 40 minutes to make two stops.” (Making buses fast and free was one of Mamdani’s signature campaign promises.) Or the 40-something Afro-Latino couple who said they came out for the sake of their children’s future, because “right now, things aren’t looking so good.” Other first-time canvassers I encountered included a soft-spoken young woman named Fatima, a heavily tattooed, outgoing 20-something Asian-American guy, a shy middle schooler with her immigrant dad, and a young white man who praised the campaign's “immaculate vibes.”

Together, we reportedly knocked on over 3 million doors.

One reason Mamdani means so much to so many New Yorkers is that he assembled a 100,000-person volunteer army—the largest in municipal history, and one of the most diverse. His volunteer base included young and middle-aged progressives of all stripes, and a substantial subset of Jewish New Yorkers, South Asians, and Muslims. Getting to know my fellow canvassers for hours and months at a time as we worked to expand that coalition was an extraordinary project in a perilous time for democracy. It demonstrated the hope that tens of thousands of us still feel, and how hard we are willing to work to make life better for ourselves and our neighbors.

Given how many doors we knocked throughout the city's five boroughs, the New Yorkers we reached were even more varied than the volunteers. During one general election canvassing shift in Kensington, a young Black woman opened the door to me and my friend Tania, who is Jewish. Although she didn’t initially recognize Mamdani’s name, as we went into our spiel, she realized he was the candidate her boyfriend had urged her to vote for. “Normally I wouldn’t tell a woman to do what her boyfriend says, but in this case, he’s right!” Tania said. (Our new friend smiled.)

Another striking moment came when an older man in South Brooklyn’s Sunset Park unsmilingly asked if I were Mamdani’s daughter. He seemed to be trying to determine why I was volunteering for a man to whom I had no apparent ethnic or religious ties. Why else would I be doing this? Mamdani was not, in fact, my father, I explained, but I believed so strongly in his agenda that I was volunteering anyway. The man kept his face blank. I wondered when someone had last knocked on his door.

Another day in Sunset Park, an older Spanish-speaking woman thanked me and my partner, who also spoke Spanish, for volunteering. She invited us into her home, where she and a small circle of relatives were celebrating her 90-year-old father’s birthday with balloons and cake. I’ll never forget the warmth and intimacy she offered us as total strangers.

In the last eight months, I’ve met Mamdani fans from Ireland, Germany, Sweden, Australia, and Canada. None could vote or contribute to the campaign, but some shadowed canvassers and interviewed volunteers, most commonly because they belonged to left-wing political parties and hoped to reproduce his success at home. Although he often emphasized that he was running a local race to benefit New Yorkers, it was clear Mamdani was also inspiring admirers around the world.

In addition to many happy, surprising, and rewarding encounters, I had my share of the awkward, unsettling, and agitating. There was the woman who saw my “New York Jews for Zohran” shirt and pretended to retch; when I moved toward her, thinking she might need help, she screamed, “That was about you, because you want my children dead!” There was the super who ordered us out of his building because we were supporting a candidate who, he falsely believes, “wants to kill all the Jews.” Another woman called my friend Allie “Nazi scum” and said she should just “put on the burqa [Mamdani will require] right now.”

Moments like these were reminders of the ugly racism our politics so often exposes. They shook me: I am rarely around people who would speak this way to anyone, let alone a stranger. But they also strengthened my resolve to work for and with people who lead with love, respect, and decency, and model those traits for others.

As of last week, New Yorkers have made one such person our mayor.

Just before the polls closed on Election Night, Tania and I met a man with two little girls with him on the street in Park Slope. He hadn’t planned to vote and realized he couldn’t make it to his polling site in time with the kids. After he left, I joked that we should have offered to babysit: “We can start delivering on Mamdani’s promise of free child care right away!” We were giddy with pre-election anxiety, and desperate to turn out every last vote.

A short time later, once it was clear Mamdani had won, my friends and I experienced one of the happiest moments of our lives. We were weeping and hugging and singing and cheering at what we’d accomplished together. All the neighbors we’d met on the ground were reflected in the voting blocs he’d won: older, moderate Black voters; young voters, including but not limited to white socialists; and immigrants, Muslim and non-Muslim alike. I’d knocked on doors before, but Mamdani’s campaign showed me just how powerful it could be.

Later, I wondered if we’d ever find a way to recapture that feeling and use it to drive ourselves forward in less happy and hopeful times. Could we love each other enough to keep doing the work that only occasionally produces such moments, even in times when there’s no end, and no payoff, in sight?

I’m still not sure how we’ll navigate this fundamental challenge of organizing. But being part of a political project that attracted the passionate support of New Yorkers in all five boroughs, and sympathizers around the world, has restored my faith in the power of organized people to defeat organized money. And although a huge part of Mamdani's appeal is that he ran on improving New Yorkers' daily lives, he also showed that grassroots campaigning works—and that contemporary politics can be a joyful and loving project that brings people together, rather than an ugly spectacle that thrives on negative attention, exploits our fears, fills us with anxiety, turns neighbors against each other, and leaves us feeling empty, sad, bitter, and alone.

In canvassing for Mamdani and other DSA-backed candidates, I saw how much people are craving community, connection, and fun. We need to create more opportunities like this—to move joyfully toward something, rather than slogging through a sales pitch for a mediocre candidate who’s better than their opponent in hopes of slowing what feels like an endless parade of horrors. In the last year—still emerging from the long shadow of a global pandemic—I’ve embraced more near-strangers than I had in the previous five. Now, there’s a bracing sense of possibility in the air—the unfamiliar feeling that good things can still happen, and we can make them.

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January 5, 2026January 5, 2026

Knocking On Hope’s Door

by Raina Lipsitz

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