Human Rights Day 2020 - Children’s Rights Are Human Rights
Human Rights Day is celebrated each year on 10 December, the date on which the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted in 1948. On this day the NEU reaffirms its commitment to fighting for human rights around the world – which are still denied to far too many.
To mark Human Rights Day this year, we were pleased to be invited by the National Education Union (NEU) for an International Webinar to talk about how the Foundation (SSF) is advancing human rights and the Sustainable Development Goals. The SSF works with teachers and educators to deliver projects that ensure inclusive and equitable quality education for all.
Thank you to everyone who attended.It was a truly international event to mark Human Rights Day with teachers attending from The Gambia, Sierra Leone, Kenya, Malawi, the U.K, Northern Ireland and Ireland, resulting in some great ideas to progress Education For All.
The evening started with Jerry Glazier Chair and founding member of the SSF and NEU National Executive member, introduced the history of the Foundation and talked about the work of Steve Sinnott, in which his legacy lives on in the work of the Foundation.
Isata M Kamara talked about our ‘Positive Periods’ campaign which has reached over 60,000 girls in some of the world’s poorest countries, and Marie Antoinette Corr General Secretary of the Gambia Teachers Union (GTU) talked about GTU and SSF working in partnership on rural education.
Ann Beatty Chief Executive of the Steve Sinnott Foundation, explained how the Foundation and their partners have adapted this year to support safe learning during the pandemic and how everyone can do something to support Education for All children everywhere.
Some of the highlights of 2020:
• We have kept over 5,000 children learning in The Gambia through the provision of solar radios.
• Work is nearly complete on our 3rd Learning Resource Centre which is opening in The Gambia in the New year.
• We have sharing learning through online storytelling and setting up the Lifelong Learning webinar series. The partners and teachers we work with are doing amazing work across the globe, and we have been trialling ways to share some of this learning so it’s available to an ever-widening audience. The webinars are carefully selected to support teaching and learning and they may also support building business skills, creativity and wellbeing.
• Our Positive Periods project has had a positive effect on over 60,000 women and girls and we hope it will reach more girls. We are excited to tell you that in Havana they are starting another Positive Periods project with grandmothers teaching their daughters and granddaughters so they get to spend quality family time together too. The Positive Periods project is working in The Gambia, Sierra Leone, Uganda, Malawi and Cuba and we have more countries waiting.
One thing that the Pandemic has illustrated to everyone is how connected we all are to each other. We do not exist in bubbles, our groups are made up of people in other groups, who are connected to more groups and so on. We have seen not just the virus spread rapidly through a country but also across the world. We are all connected across the world.
It’s the same for education too. If we are able to get access to quality education right in one country, the problems caused by lack of education in other countries are still going to affect everyone globally.
Lack of education, and therefore opportunities, is something we are passionate about changing, we believe that Education is a human right for all children, it should not matter where they were born, who they were born to or their gender, they should expect access to a quality education as that gives them choices for their future.
The Steve Sinnott Foundation is working at a grass roots level to make a change to education across the globe. We do this by working in partnership with teachers on the ground, who scope and manage each project locally, so it is fit for purpose, respects the local culture and is sustainable and where possible replicable. We work with teachers to create independence not dependency.
When we have problems in the UK people may be concerned about how we can fix our own problems, but without fixing problems globally, new challenges will be created, which affect us all equally.
What can you do to support our work?
• You can help us with Resources and research.
• You can write articles for Engage or our blog so we can share all teaching and learning practices globally.
• We would love to work more closely with International Solidarity Officers so please invite us to work with you.
• You can follow us on social media, like and comment to get our engagement levels up.
• Subscribe to our YouTube Channel
• You can share our work with any new partners who might be interested, we believe working together is winning together.
• Finally, most importantly you can ask your districts to support our work, it costs £25 for a good quality solar radio which provides lessons for at least 10 children. So, £500 would buy 20 radios and support over 200 children to access learning.
• The materials and training for a making 5 reusable period pads which last a girl up to 3 years is £3 so if you donate £10 a month that is supporting 40 girls in a year. Once a girl has learned this skill, she can manage her periods independently and with dignity and pride.
If you have any questions or comments please leave them below or email ann.beatty@stevesinnottfoundation.org.uk
The Steve Sinnott Foundation • December 14, 2020
This week while out and about in Hertfordshire and we visited the British Schools Museum. We discovered the first school opened by Joseph Lancaster, was known as the ‘Poor Childs Friend”, was in 1810. It was his lifelong mission that all children regardless of their circumstances, should benefit from an education. Apparently, Joseph heard a small girl say, “Oh that I could read!” and this inspired him to create a simple education system that eventually would benefit children across the world. Joseph was the tenth son of a poor man himself from South London. His aim was to offer free education for everyone. However, it would be 93 years before the U.K. government finally made education free for all. There are still many countries today where education is still not free to access and it is certainly not compulsory for primary and secondary age pupils. Joseph’s mission really resonates with that of the Foundation, to support access to education for all. We enjoyed our visit and appreciated the tour given by two of the Museum’s volunteers, Angela and Clare. They described some of the challenges faced in the early years of formal education and shared some of the rules that teachers and students had to abide by with us.
Sparks Bristol is a collaborative community project initially envisioned by The Global Goals Centre, (GGC) more of which below. A few years ago, GGC took over an empty Marks and Spencer store and that’s how Sparks was born. Sparks is a department store with a difference, co-created by Global Goals Centre and Artspace Lifespace. On the ground floor is a huge range of shops, installations, events and more. Upstairs is a hub for local artists, it offers affordable studios as well as rehearsal and performance space. The Global Goals Centre is a Bristol-based educational charity inspired by the Sustainable Development Goals. (SDGs). GGC believe the SDG’s or Global Goals as they are sometimes known, can be reached, with imaginative solutions and widespread education and engagement. They work with partners to promote creative solutions and deliver ground breaking projects that work towards these ambitious goals. The Steve Sinnott Foundation supported the Global Goals Centre with seed funding when it first started over 5 years ago. This month we went to visit them to see how they are getting on and we were taken aback by the volume of work they have achieved since they started. It is amazing to see how though working together with other local community groups it has grown into the vibrant centre it is today. All of the creative projects they host are linked to the SDGs. They cover topics that tackle poverty, education, climate change, fashion recycling and upcycling, to name a few.
Spring is definitely here, daffodils, blossom and crocuses are all basking in the bright sunshine. There is still a chill in the air in the shade but it's happening and all the seeds that were sown over the last few months are coming to fruition. At the Foundation, we have been planning the year ahead and our Positive Periods and Prevention of Gender Based Violence programmes got underway this weekend in Haiti and Ghana. These projects will have a long-lasting effect on the lives of the women and girls who take part: tackling the root causes of gender-based violence and enabling girls to attend school every day when they have their period, to feel safe at school and know how to take action when they are faced with violence. These are the first of many projects planned for the year ahead as we continue to work towards Education for All children everywhere.
