Fall, Feel, Rise: Hope Tour, Fourth Wave Foundation, and the Practice of Resilience

Every heartbeat tells a story. Fall, feel, rise. That's the pulse of resilience -- and it's the theme of this year's World Resiliency Week.

This episode of the Prevention Leaders Podcast is a multicast collaboration with the Unnecessary Harm podcast, hosted by Shane Varkow, Executive Director of the Dalgarno Institute in Australia. Together, we sit down with two of the architects of World Resiliency Week 2026: Adam Woods from the Hope Tour in Australia, and Sneha Patiyathal from the Fourth Wave Foundation in Kerala, India.

Two different countries. Two completely different cultural contexts. One shared conviction: resilience is not a luxury. It is a practice that belongs to everyone.

This conversation is about what that theme means on the ground -- in schools, in coastal communities, on soccer fields, and in the lives of young people navigating peer pressure, social media, absence, and the very human need to belong. From the Venda Cup (800 boys and 800 girls this year across 14 districts of Kerala) to the Hope Tour's push to reach 100 schools across Australia in 2026 alone -- this is prevention work at its best: community-rooted, relationship-centered, and built for the long haul.

World Resiliency Week 2026 runs June 26-30. Learn more and access free resources at the World Resiliency Day platform.

In This Episode

• Why Sneha's organization focuses on the 75% of students who aren't using substances -- the fence sitters who could go either way -- and why that's where prevention actually lives
• How the Hope Tour walks into schools across Australia and helps kids ask a simple but life-changing question: "Who are my five people?"
• What the "Feel" in Fall-Feel-Rise actually means, and why slowing down to feel is harder than just rising
• The story of the Venda Cup -- from 4 teams in 2017 to 800 boys and 800 girls this year -- and how a football tournament became a pathway to the Slum Soccer World Cup in the UK
• The Humpty Dumpty Dilemma: why this generation is simultaneously the most connected and the most fragile that has ever lived -- and what prevention can do about it

Guest Bios

Adam Woods

Adam Woods is the national coordinator of the Hope Tour in Australia and a youth coordinator at Acts Global Church in Bunbury, Western Australia. He leads school-based resilience and prevention programming for students in years 6-12, with the Hope Tour now operating in Melbourne, Western Australia, and Sydney, and expanding to more states in 2027.

Sneha Patiyathal

Sneha Patiyathal is a credentialed catalyst at the Fourth Wave Foundation in Kerala, India, and one of eight World Resiliency Day global ambassadors. She has represented her organization at the United Nations in Vienna and at the Asian Youth Forum on Drug Use Prevention. She works on Project Venda, Fourth Wave Foundation's 10-year substance use prevention initiative in Kerala.

Links:

https://worldresiliencyday.com.au/