Thirty Richmond community leaders have formed a new Hope in the Cities Council to provide a space for networking, sharing of concerns and insights, and exploration of opportunities for honest conversation on critical issues.

Three British graduates with a passion for social change spent three weeks at the Ikhaya Labantu homeless shelter in Cape Town, South Africa, in January. Sabrina Jantuah, Derek Oakley and Jonathan Grayson were recruited by Phoebe Gill, director of Hope in the Cities UK. HiC UK has established a formal partnership with the residents of Ikhaya Labantu, in the impoverished township of Langa.

In 1972 Cleiland Donnan decided to be part of the solution to racial division in Richmond. It was an unlikely choice for someone who spent their life teaching the fox trot and social graces to the children of Richmond’s affluent West End.

"Esperança nas Cidades tem apresentado um mapa para o futuro", diz o ex-governador da Virgínia, Tim Kaine em seu prefácio para o livro “Construção de Confiança: uma conversa honesta sobre raça, reconciliação e responsabilidade”, de Rob Corcoran, publicado este mês pela gráfica da Universidade da Virgínia.

Students from Duke University Divinity School visited Richmond this month on a “pilgrimage of pain and hope.”

"Hope in the Cities has provided a map for the future," says former Virginia governor Tim Kaine in his foreword to Trustbuilding: an honest conversation on race, reconciliation, and responsibility, by Rob Corcoran, which is published this month by University of Virginia Press.

在世界許多城市，種族主義和族群衝突是困擾當地人民生活的棘手問題。「城市希望」最先在美國維吉尼亞州里乞蒙市 (Richmond) 發起，目的是要為「種族、和解與責任等議題建立真誠對話」。如今，「城市希望」已形成了一個聯結美國十多個城市的活動網絡，致力建立社區種族和諧，並協助培訓促進社區多元民族和衷共濟的志願工作人員。英國、巴西、南非、澳洲等國許多社區領袖和行動家亦參與「城市希望」發起的國際性活動。

(Photo: Maria Grace)The Hope in the Cities team helped facilitate an international Tools for Change conference August 9-15, in Caux,Switzerland. Sixty-five young Muslims from the UK, France, Sweden, Netherlands, and Germany were among the 380 participants from 50 countries.