“The world feels like it’s breaking from the inside out,” says my colleague Mercedes Alarcón, a doctor in Mexico City. “There are days when I think how much easier it would be to turn away.”

Her feelings of overwhelm and helplessness are echoed by many of us here in Canada. We need only open our phones to see a news cycle dominated by wars, climate emergencies, mass displacement and political unrest. Growing polarization threatens to rip communities apart, while misinformation and AI-generated content run rampant online.

Against this backdrop, it’s easy to see hope as a luxury or even a weakness. Yet, as my colleague Mercedes puts it so well, at a time when some of the most powerful voices have megaphones to spread hatred and division, hope stands as a deliberate, defiant choice. Hope is radical.

The idea of bold, determined hope is the spark that fuels this issue of Dispatches. Inside, you will hear from Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) staff who persevere against challenging circumstances to provide medical care for communities facing crises. This includes a photo series offering a look into the daily work of three colleagues who carry hope in Haiti, Mexico and Ukraine.

You will also read stories from colleagues in Sudan, who have lived and worked amid more than three years of bru­tal war. Despite having lost almost everything, they show up every day to provide care for people in circumstances like theirs. And we will share a testimony from Ismail, who fled his home country to cross continents and the Mediterranean Sea in search of safety. He was rescued by MSF’s search and rescue team, and now works to support migrants, refugees and asylum seekers like himself.

“I resolutely believe hope is a deliberate, defiant choice. Hope is radical.”

Their stories, and those of so many others, remind me hope is not the absence of fear, doubt or despair. It is instead the relentless determination to show up anyway and to keep paying attention, even when it’s easier to look or scroll away.

Your support helps enable our action. And I hope – with all the significance that word carries – you will continue to stand with us as we reject a status quo of despair and overwhelm. Together, we must hold on to hope.