Amid intersecting crises — conflict, climate disruption, displacement, and rising inequality — women and girls bear disproportionate material and emotional burdens. While policy responses focus on structural reform, far less attention is given to the inner capacities that sustain long-term action for gender justice. This gap is evident as movements face backlash, burnout, shrinking civic space, and declining trust needed to advance commitments.

This interactive side event explores hope as a learnable, collective capacity for advancing gender equality, drawing on emerging research, faith-based practice, and the Inner Development Goals. Hope is framed not as passive optimism, but as a political and relational resource that strengthens agency, resilience, and sustained leadership amid structural injustice.

The session features brief insights from practitioners and researchers alongside a participatory artistic experience led by singer and sound artist Andromeda Turre. Her Echoes of Hope project gathers global reflections and weaves them into an evolving sound archive.

Participants will engage in small-group dialogue using Gestalt and dialogical learning methods to surface patterns of burnout, collective agency, and renewal — generating policy-relevant insights while reflecting on how hope is cultivated within their own gender justice work.