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Good morning. Hope is a scarce commodity in the refugee camps of Syria. Amidst worries and joy about lifting restrictions in England, economic recovery, holiday possibilities, two news reports stand out, incongruous alongside our Western preoccupations. Many Syrian children can identify warplanes, but don’t know what shopping is. And in refugee camps where Islamic State supporters are held, children face a lifetime of incarceration, and are radicalised from a young age. Hope in the West has the face of liberty, hugging loved ones, children at school. What is hope in Syria, when children’s futures are already closed by adults’ choices? Hope is about the shape of the future, a belief that somehow the past doesn’t have to be determinative. But for children in Syria, freedom is elusive; some are incarcerated with their parents, others have led such restricted lives that they don’t have the tools to imagine a different future. Hope and imagination are closely related. When imagination is shaped by warplanes or ISIS propaganda, hope for the future easily takes the shape of war, violence, and endless cycles of retaliation. Yet children’s imaginations are malleable. A Middle Eastern friend of mine felt that it was pointless to talk of hope without working towards it. As a Christian, she believed that the past is never the final word, that there is always the possibility of transformation, and that life can rise out of apparent death. Her vision was simple – to change the future by helping the children. She set up a charity to give trauma counselling for Syrian children, a charity that grew and grew and now offers education and training and cares for entire families. Starting with trauma counselling acknowledges that to build the future, we need to let go of the past. Hope is not wishful thinking; it is a practical, long-term task: to help children imagine a different world, where there are other things to name than warplanes, creativity brings healing rather than more ingenious ways to kill, and the way to freedom does not lie through radicalism. Hope is not certainty, and there are many setbacks; but hope can be kindled when there is willingness to get involved, attend to the wounds of the past, and shape possibilities for the future. And if there is hope for the children of Syria, then there is certainly hope for lockdown-weary Europeans, if we only look in the right places.