This forum gathering now after these extraordinary two years is a moment of hope. It's an expression of hope, a hope that we can ever better build societies that are grounded in respect for human rights.
What inspires me is really that we never stopped caring. We never stopped fighting. We never stopped fighting for the things that matter to us, whether it's climate, employment, education, all those things that have to do with our fundamental rights.
Of course, we have problems in different Member States. We have problems in all the Member States, maybe not in the same size. But to see the reaction of the young generation. It's a very important element to have hope in the future.
When talking about racism, it's really hard to have hope, especially if you're like, negatively affected by racism. So what we're trying to do and what we're focusing on is empowerment of young people.
The most important thing to generate hope is to have a role model, someone to be inspired by someone to look up to. I knew for a fact that when I was a child, I found my role models, maybe within the Paralympic and sporting movement to show what could be possible.
My big hope is that in a couple of years we will have more human rights cities. And why I think that is important is because we are working for our citizens every day.
I think what I'm hopeful for is actually the vibrancy of the youth and youth participation around kind of like important human rights issues, you know, and that does give me real hope for the future.
I'm hugely optimistic and as we've seen in the past three years, what is possible if people start fighting for their future and fighting for the present living conditions. We see that youth is in a way unstoppable.
You must always hope for a better future or you won't be able to carry on like a mountain climber who does not surrender to the treacherous cliffs on the right and left, one should move forward at keep climbing.
