Between Hopes and Disillusionment
On 20 February 2026, on behalf of the Universal Peace Federation (UPF Italy), Prof. Elena Marta conducted an academic webinar and held dialogue with young participants, to assess current youth perceptions of the future and their implications for social cohesion and peacebuilding. The session identified a widening gap between an environment framed as “full of opportunities” and the real-life experience of uncertainty, performance pressure, and fear of failure. A central analytical concept was mattering—the need for young people to feel recognised as significant contributors, not merely visible or evaluated.
Post-pandemic dynamics were discussed as a key driver of disillusionment, including a perceived lack of continuity between the solidarity narratives of the Covid period and subsequent social and economic realities. Research insights referenced during the webinar suggested a marked decline in hope among those aged between nineteen to thirty-four, coinciding with critical life decisions such as education-to-work transitions, employment stability, and long-term commitments. Youth interventions reinforced these findings, highlighting priorities such as meaningful work, authentic relationships, community belonging, and the continued relevance of volunteering and civic engagement.
The webinar concluded with proposed operational goals for UPF, like strengthening intergenerational spaces of dialogue, promoting community-based mentorship, and supporting “social generativity” as a protective factor for youth resilience and a constructive agency.
A full Italian synthesis has been prepared for publication on the Voci di Pace blog and for internal dissemination.
Following is the discussion in a more a comprehensive form:
Youth and the Future: Hope Is Not Optimism—It is a Direction
From mattering to social generativity, this is what young people are asking of adults, and why it matters for peace. Relative points were debated on UPF Italy’s webinar entitled, “Youth and the Future: Between Hopes and Disillusionment”, where young people were not simply discussed from a distance but personally spoke for themselves. What emerged was both sobering and energising. The real crisis is not a lack of possibilities, but a lack of orientation, and peace, in this sense, begins long before diplomacy—it begins when a generation can trust the future enough to choose it.
Talking about youth is talking about peace
The conversation opened with a simple premise: peace is not only the absence of violence. Peace is the daily work of building meaning, relationships, and social cohesion. That is why youth matters so much. When young people feel unheard or interchangeable, societies don’t just lose talent—they lose trust. And without trust, even the best institutions become brittle.
Not apathy but pressure, overload, and the fear of failing
Prof. Elena Marta offered a helpful lens: today’s youth are often described as disengaged, but that label misses the point. Many young people care deeply. The problem is the tension they live with every day: an overflow of opportunities (“you can be anything”) paired with intense pressure to perform and fear of getting it wrong.
The issue is not freedom itself, but freedom without coordinates. When success becomes a moving target—and comparison is constant—choices start to feel like traps. This is where one key word surfaced: mattering. Young people need to feel they truly count—not just that they are seen, but that their presence makes a difference and their contribution is real. Hence, mattering is not the same as being praised. It also requires adults to take young people seriously enough to challenge them—with honesty—and to be close when mistakes happen.
After Covid: a sense of “betrayal,” and quiet anger
One of the most striking points was the post-pandemic shift. During Covid, many young people experienced a sudden rediscovery of priorities—care, justice, interdependence. Then the world “snapped back” to old rhythms, often with fewer safeguards and more uncertainty. For some, this produced a painful feeling: betrayal by the adult world. Not always loud, not always expressed as protest. Sometimes it becomes a restrained, “domesticated” anger—an internal pressure that turns into exhaustion, anxiety, or attempts to numb the weight of it all.
The hardest finding: hope drops at the very moment life decisions begin
The research insights discussed in the webinar highlighted something counterintuitive: hope does not decline most sharply in adolescence, but is especially felt in the nineteen to thirty-four age range, the years of decisive life-building choices—work, stability, relationships, family, responsibility. Exactly when a society needs young adults to step forward, many experience the future as foggy, fragile, or closed.
Part of this is linked to how the adult world is perceived: rushed, technical, constantly “in output mode”, and sometimes poor in deep human presence. In that context, young people are not demanding a perfect roadmap. They are asking for a direction, a “north star”, a horizon they can walk towards without feeling foolish.
The youth voices: family, authenticity, and community
The dialogue confirmed the analysis in the most grounded way—through self-experience. One participant spoke about the future as a mix of joy and responsibility, with a clear desire to build a family and reliable relationships. Another described uncertainty not only as fear, but as an open space in which to find one’s place. Another emphasised self-knowledge. Understanding one’s talents, setting goals that evolve over time, and asked adults for a different kind of presence, less ego, more listening, more heart. Another voiced real disillusionment shaped by work pressures and the weight of global news, yet refused nihilism, pointing to volunteering and education as examples that many young people still choose to “believe in something”.
A small moment carried a deep meaning when one young speaker said he sometimes finds more freedom talking with older strangers, on a train or subway, than with people who “know him halfway.” It was a reminder that what we need is not just programmes, but human space for intergenerational encounter.
The way forward: social generativity, not control
The final practical and hopeful proposal: adults and communities must move from simply “caring for” youth to becoming generative. That means offering trust, values, and orientation while also letting young people become themselves. It is a form of “social parenting”—communities that accompany rather than control, that don’t infantilise but enable.
The closing remarks echoed the same spirit: uncertainty doesn’t have to be a dead end. It can become the beginning of shared learning—if we choose to walk it together.
The webinar ended with UPF proposing future goals based on the following important points taken from the discussion:
- Mattering matters: create spaces where young people contribute, not just attend
- Name the pressure: performance anxiety is real; reduce shame and normalise learning.
- Rebuild trust post-Covid: acknowledge disillusionment; don’t dismiss it.
- Protect the 19–34 age window: support stable transitions—work, mentoring, community ties.
- Practise generativity: offer direction and presence, not just rules or slogans.