Shopping fundraiser – for lockdown shopping
Did you know...
The pandemic may have changed our shopping habits forever. At the moment we can’t shop the way we used to and right now everything has to be bought online. This has opened up a new experience for many and for others it has changed the way they do business.
Buying online is a different shopping experience in many ways. We can’t browse, touch, hold, meander around and see what takes our fancy. In some ways buying online is more efficient on our budget too, because browsing in shops is evidenced to make us buy more.
Of course, online shopping saves us time, we don’t have to travel, we Google just what we are looking for. But how do we know what we are looking for? If we are not browsing in a real space, what is influencing us to think about what we might want to buy?
One thing that is a loss to many people is not being able to buy from charity shops right now. The joy of browsing in a charity shop is that you don’t know what you are likely to discover. Many of the larger ones have been able to go online though: Oxfam, Age UK, Cancer Research UK, British Red Cross, The Air Ambulance Services, and more all have online shops now. Some of the smaller ones have been able to open an eBay store.
But something we may not realise is that shopping online in many of the large commercial stores has a very real and tangible benefit for charities too.
Did you know...
That you can easily support us every time you buy something on-line?
As you can imagine, all charities are finding fundraising challenging right now, at a time when more people than ever need the support that they offer. If like us, you want to ensure that all children everywhere have access to quality education then we hope you will love these opportunities to help us without ever spending any more of your own money.
There are two fantastic ways that offer the possibility to make a micro-donation to us every time that you shop on-line.
Firstly, we wanted to let you know that The Steve Sinnott Foundation are registered with easyfundraising, which means you can raise FREE donations to support access to education every time you shop online. Over 4,000 shops and sites will donate to us when you use easyfundraising to shop with them – at no extra cost to yourself! These are just a few of the retailers who are part of the scheme:
These donations really mount up and make a BIG difference to us, so we’d really appreciate it if you could take a moment to sign up and support us. It’s completely FREE and only takes a moment.
You can find our easyfundraising page here: https://www.easyfundraising.org.uk/causes/stevesinnott/?utm_campaign=raise-more&utm_content=gs-e1
Secondly, we have registered our charity with Amazon Smile. It’s very easy, you just need to place your normal order at smile.amazon.co.uk using your regular amazon account and select Steve Sinnott Foundation as the charity you wish to support.
Did you know...
Every little really does help. Even if you only raise £20 through your online shopping, if you multiply that by the number of people who want to achieve Education for All Children Everywhere, then that will be an awful lot of fundraising and with that we can make even more of a difference.
If, or rather, when you find yourself shopping on-line then you have the opportunity to do good at the same time at no additional cost to yourself. That’s what we can all call a win win!
What are you waiting for? Get on-line & sign up to make free donations whilst you shop that help children everywhere access education today.
Thank you so much!
The Steve Sinnott Foundation • February 1, 2021
How a simple act of practical solidarity is transforming the journey to school in The Gambia’s Central River Region North Policies have been written. Schools have been built. Yet for many children in The Gambia’s Central River Region North, access to education is still measured in kilometres, not opportunity.
‘In a single hour vast tracts of shaded woodland became a jumble of torn trees and upturned soil, exposed to the glare of the summer sun. Such land-clearing events are rare, but forests exhibit remarkable resilience in the face of disaster. I’m told that the Chinese character for ‘catastrophe’ is the same as that which represents the word ‘opportunity’. And, the blowdown, while catastrophic, presented opportunities for many species.’ (Wall Kimmerer, 2003: 89). In the context of a volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous world (Stein, 2021) what kinds of education for hope might support children’s and young people’s critical engagement in local and global issues? In the spirit of exploring the possibilities of hope further, this short article focuses on the area of global citizenship and sustainabilityrelated education. It will briefly open by sharing commonalities across pedagogical approaches that take up the concept and act of hope more critically, and close by offering reflective questions for educators, with suggestions for further reading. Perhaps it is a kind of hope that is grounded in the present, in future reimagining(s), in ethical solidarity, and an acknowledgement of our deep entanglement with the living metabolism of planet earth 1 our singular home (UNESCO, 2021); a hope that engages with complex root causes and lived realities of multiple overlapping crises in critically reflexive and contextually relevant ways. As McCloskey notes, ‘Hope can fire our collective imagination and critical consciousness as a mainspring to activism and intervention in the world.’ (2025: 3). Commonalities across critical pedagogical approaches to hope include: Acknowledging the context of a ‘seamless single story of progress, development and human evolution’ (Andreotti, V.D.O., 2021b Relating to social and ecological justice and the wellbeing of people and planet Using participatory, action-orientated and inquiry-based learning processes Exploring diverse worldviews and perspectives Practising grounding in the present with opening up possibilities for change (relational, embodied, response-able 2 ) Experiencing ‘struggle’ in different forms (dialogical, selfreflexive, open-ended) Engaging individual and collective agency, action and activism Looking for lifelong and life-wide learning and unlearning. 1 See ‘Co-sensing with Radical Tenderness’, in Machado de Oliveira Andreotti. 2021a 2 See ‘Crossing Borders’ in 2 Depth Education “Depth Education and the Possibility of GCE Otherwise, 2021b. Source: Andreotti, V. 2021a & 2021b., Atif, A. (2025)., Bourn, D. 2021., Bryan. A. and Mochizuki,Y., 2024., Giroux, H.A. 2025., Meade, E. 2025. Whilst engaging in the concept and act of hope more critically reflect upon: What kinds of education for hope might you explore further and why? How might you provide generative spaces for engaging in diverse worldviews and perspectives? In what ways can you facilitate individual and collective agency? How might you support learners’ practice grounding in the present in order to relate differently? In what ways can you support learners in navigating complex root causes and lived realities of local and global issues? As Chief Ninawa Hini Kui affirms, ‘The future depends much less on the images we project ahead than on our capacity to repair relations and build relationships differently in the present.’ (Andreotti et al, 2023: 73. An invitation for further reading: Transformative Learning for a Sustainable Future . d’Abreu, C., Belgeonne, C., Bourn, D. and Hatley, J. (2025) ‘Transformative Learning for a Sustainable Future’. DERC Research Paper 24. London: UCL Institute of Education. Hospicing Modernity: facing humanity’s wrongs and the implications for social activism. Machado de Oliveira Andreotti, V. (2021a) ‘Hospicing Modernity: facing humanity’s wrongs and the implications for social activism’ , London: Penguin Random House. Development Education and Hope . McCloskey, S. (2025). (ed) ‘Development Education and Hope’. ‘Policy and Practice: A Development Education Review’ , Vol. 41, Autumn. Centre for Global Education, Belfast. Link to and download the full reference list here
This summed up to me about why I volunteer for the Hands Up Project. HUP is a charity trust which, through its network of volunteers, connects children around the world with young people in Palestine. By means of online interaction, drama and storytelling activities, it enables the use of creativity and selfexpression to promote mutual understanding, personal growth, and the development of English language skills. I joined HUP in 2020 during COVID. After going to Palestine in 2017, I wanted to get more involved in working with Palestinian children in schools. HUP gave me the opportunity to link up with schools in the West Bank and Gaza. Every week I’d tell them stories from all over the world, then we’d discuss it, play games and I’d get them to retell it. Sometimes we would work from their coursebook English for Palestine’ in mutual team teaching sessions with their teacher. The simple act of telling a story became much more than entertainment. It became connection, healing, and a bridge to the world beyond their immediate reality to help them improve their language skills, and to give them a platform to speak about their lives in a language that connects them to people everywhere. I loved it, every week, seeing their smiling faces on the screen and building long lasting friendships with their teachers. I even went to Gaza in 2023 and met some of the kids I’d only seen on Zoom. It was a beautiful experience and something I will never forget. As hostilities escalated, I lost contact with everyone. I thought about where the kids were and what had happened to them. As I watched schools being bombed, universities flattened, and people killed in their thousands, I thought about where the kids I’d met were and what was happening to them. I kept in contact with many of the teachers I knew and heard daily news of displacement, destruction, hunger and bombing. Recently, I’ve started to link up again with children in Gaza, and it feels wonderful to be back helping them learn after being denied an education for over two years. Connecting with children in Palestine is more than just words. When a child in Palestine confidently tells their story to someone on the other side of the world, bridges are built, empathy grows, and the world gains a fuller picture of childhood in contexts far from peace and privilege. My work with these children is rooted in the belief that education and voice are inseparable. Through storytelling and English language learning, I witness children not just learning new vocabulary, but reclaiming their narratives, believing in their potential, and finding human connection in a world they perceive has abandoned them. And more than anything, this work reminds us all that children — everywhere — deserve to learn, to speak, and to be heard. Links to HUP information, books and resources: The Hands Up Project BY SUSAN PIPER Susan Piper is currently an ESOL teacher in Oldham, Greater Manchester and has worked in education for over 30 years. She is also a volunteer for the Hands Up Project and is the International Solidarity Officer and President of her NEU district. She believes in quality education for all and aims to make her lessons creative and inclusive so that effective language learning can take place.
