HOPEPUNK - Hoffnung als Entscheidung

Im Herbst 2025 öffnete die Grundschule Isestrasse in Hamburg ihre Türen für knapp 40 Erstklässler und Vorschüler. Wiebke Lüssenhop (Schulleiterin) und Birgit Glomb (Stv. Schulleiterin) haben das Konzept erarbeitet, den Aufbau begleitet und führen die Schule nun Schritt für Schritt in den Regelbetrieb. Die beiden kennen sich aus einer anderen Schule in Hamburg und arbeiten seit sie sich kennen eng zusammen. In ihrer neuen Schule gibt es keinen Frontalunterricht mehr, Kinder lernen in ihrem eigenen Tempo und in jahrgangsübergreifenden Kompartments. Die Schwerpunktthemen der Schule sind "Demokratie und Digitalität", und beides wird in den Schulalltag integriert. Diese Folge ist ein Gemeinschaftsprojekt mit Michael Trautmann vom Podcast "On the Way to New Work".

Verena Ringler is founder and head of European Commons and AGORA, a boutique think and do-tank based in Innsbruck, Austria. She is a close observer of the European Union and an innovator at the intersection between political institutions on the one hand, and players in science, business and civil society on the other. Join us for a conversation around hope, the current situation in Albania and European resilience. Verena started her career as a journalist and spent several years working for the US magazine Foreign Policy, living in Washington DC. Later, she returned to Europe and joined a team around the Special Representative of the Council of the European Union in Kosovo, as deputy head of Press and Public Affairs. Since then, she has worked independently, but also within institutions, for instance as head of international affairs and Europe projects at Stfitung Mercator. She is also a former visiting fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States.

Omri Preiss is Managing Director of Alliance4Europe, a non-profit we co-founded in 2018. Omri sees hope as a motivator in working towards a more desirable future. In the context of his work, that means defending and strengthening democracy in Europe, which is increasingly under threat, and working to make our societies more resilient. Omri is not naive. He takes nightmare scenarios very seriously. But in light of these, he dedicates himself to pursuing the dream of a democratic Europe that lives up to its values. For European democracy to survive and to thrive, Omri says – and I would agree – that we need people to be active. To go out and vote. To organise around issues they care about. And, importantly, we need an environment in which people are free to do so without fear from repercussion. Threats to this system are manifold, and Alliance4Europe contributes to addressing them in tandem with their many partners. Check out the shownotes to find out more.

Thomas is founder of hope-based communications, an initiative that promotes using hope as an effective strategy for change. Thomas has spent two decades in global political communications with a focus on human rights. In this conversation, he shares what motivated his shift from fear- to hope-based communications, and offers hand-on tools for anyone to use who wants to find the hope in their story. We talk about the importance of communicating our values - "if we are against hate and cruelty, we are for love and kindness" - and what "hopepunk politics" could look like.