Hope on the Rize is a writing and short film project that builds upon classroom learning to create an immersive and transformative experience for all participants. It leverages the humanizing power of poetry and creativity to build community, empower youth visions and voices, and bridge classroom learning and real-world impact.

Integrative Projects that Deepen Learning

Hope on the Rize projects are designed and activated in partnership with educators, enhancing student learning through creative, standards-aligned experiences—especially for students in grades 5–8. 

We work closely with teachers to understand grade-level goals, classroom culture, and the year’s overall arc of learning across subjects like history, science, and English. Drawing on two decades of experience designing customized and adaptive learning journeys, we create integrated projects that complement, expand, and amplify what’s already happening in the classroom.

From Creative Spark to Short Film

The first phase of Hope on the Rize projects invites students to think critically and creatively, encouraging them to explore different perspectives through conversation, poetry, and reflective writing. From there, students are guided step-by-step—from an initial creative idea to a final short film that expresses something they care about, value, enjoy, or hope to see more of in the world.

Each project culminates in a classroom or grade-level submission of films to the Hope on the Rize project, combining voices across grades and schools. Many classrooms also host “film festivals,” where families and school communities are invited to watch and celebrate the unique narratives students have created through this powerful and meaningful learning experience. 

The Mother Tree Council

We are honored to introduce you to the Mother Tree Council, a remarkable group of educators, scientists, poets, artists, storytellers, and designers, who generously lend their time and wisdom to review and uplift the films created through Hope on the Rize. Their thoughtful selection process culminates in special awards that celebrate students’ creativity and dedication. These awards are often proudly displayed in classrooms as symbols of accomplishment and encouragement for future projects. The Council’s support shows the power of being witnessed, honoring wisdom across generations, and weaving a community of mutual respect and care.

Honoring Inspiration and Legacy

Poetry is humanizing and transformative.  Inspired by our friend and mentor, Dedan Gills, and poets and scientists across the centuries, the Pseads programs are founded on the notion that even more than something that can be written or spoken, a poem is a way of being. With his wife, educator and social justice advocate Belvie Rooks, Dedan imagined championing the poetry in every person, advancing human dignity, and supporting social and environmental healing through tree planting ceremonies, with trees as emblems of community and transformation.  

Hope on the Rize was also deeply informed by the life and legacy of Susan Lambert, whose photography, writing and visual art is a celebration of a commitment she lived every day to “find the extraordinary in the ordinary.”  Her vision inspired Pseads to take the journey of self-expression even further, transforming poems and writing into impactful visual and multimedia narratives that reveal new possibilities and leave a bigger mark on the world.

What Students Say

In April 2022, The New York Times quoted research findings that 44 percent of American high school students report persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness. This number feels conservative, and in no way limited to high school students. In a highly-charged and uncertain world, what are the things that can enliven, humanize, uplift, and inspire? How can young people experience and share new ways of relating to and caring for themselves, the earth and each other? What can we keep on the horizon of our minds that opens our hearts?  

These questions are at the heart of Hope on Rize – an emerging project that invites young people to create their own 1-2 minute short film documenting a message or project they believe deserves attention and can activate a more beautiful, just and peaceful future.  Hope on the Rize can include learning journeys that weave writing, reflection, media, conversation, and action, including through adaptable, standards-compliant lessons that integrate guidance on student filmmaking. 

To expand the ripple of student action further, we want to plant a tree for every student project completed and encouraging communities to host their own youth showcases in May 2022. This effort will be connected with Jane Goodall’s Trees for Jane project and the Trillion Trees Campaign, and is inspired by the legacy of Pseads founding board member and poet Dedan Gills and his wife, educator and activist Belvie Rooks, and their vision to plant a million trees to promote social and environmental healing.

Hope isn’t always based on logic. 

In fact, it can seem very illogical…

Maybe hope is not an expression of the facts alone. 

Hope is how we create new facts.

     – Jane Goodall, The Book of Hope