The power of stories in discovering where you are really from

‘Where are you really from?’


‘Where are you really from?’ I’ve faced this question more times than I care to recall. A new acquaintance is dissatisfied with your first answer and presses for details of your ethnicity, family history and more. Why do they need to know all this? You are being made to feel that you don’t really belong. Who you think you are is seemingly irrelevant.


A shared past?


In recent years, the British Empire has moved from being a rarely discussed part of our shared history to the centre of controversy about what it means to be British. Social media feeds suggest those who critique the past are disloyal, even traitorous! This is ironic, since history is reinterpreted in every generation; historians are constantly reviewing evidence. It may be because most of us educated in British schools in recent decades learned very little about this episode of history. Before World War Two, children celebrated Empire Day by dressing and parading in fancy costumes. But postwar, as former colonial territories struggled for independence, the celebrations were quietly dropped. My schooling skated over the topic of empire and certainly didn’t link it to Britain’s Industrial Revolution. Why? It wasn’t a question of curriculum space, for we covered the Tudors and Stuarts innumerable times.


The power of stories


Fortunately, I was raised in a family of storytellers, learning at an early age there are many sides to every story. My mother and maternal grandparents were migrants, each moving several times across oceans. In 2018, I spent a few days in Chennai, India - the former city of Madras that my grandparents left 100 years earlier - on my way to work in Sri Lanka. During this trip I realised that my family stories, retold in each place, despite war and upheaval, were very special. I decided to write a family-orientated story of empire, that would include women’s stories. I resolved to visit each of the places where they settled - Chennai, Sarawak, and Singapore – all once part of the British Empire.


Then the pandemic hit, and unable to travel, I was forced to time travel. It was tricky, with libraries and archives shut for many months, but miraculously, in 2021 I came across a letter written in 1817 by my great- great- great-grandfather in Madras. In it, he tells his story, that of a Tamil boy, captured and enslaved by the East India Company, who in 1789 found himself destitute on the streets of London, and who eventually worked his passage back to India. He worked as butler to a European family and in his free time provided schooling for the poorest people of Madras.


What we share


The Steve Sinnott Foundation believes education gives people the opportunity to make the most of their lives and opportunities. My three-times great-grandfather, William Roberts, held a similar vision of the power of education to change lives. The project he founded in seventeenth century Madras lives on today and is witness to his vision. My book Where are you from? No, where are you really from? recounts William’s story and doesn’t shy away from the devastating impacts of empire, but it is also one of hope and happiness. I include stories of children’s lives, and of romantic love against the odds. It’s a story of a mixed-heritage Anglo-Indian family over six generations. I believe in the power of stories to change lives and to look afresh at our commonalities and differences. This is more important today than ever, in the face of war, destruction and disrespect for civilian lives. I invite you, the reader, to reconsider: where are you really from?


Biography


Audrey Osler is Professor Emerita of Citizenship and Human Rights Education at the University of Leeds, founding Editor-in-Chief of Human Rights Education Review, and co-Chair of the International Association for Human Rights Education (IAHRE). Audrey is a patron of the Steve Sinnott Foundation. Her latest book, Where are you from? No, where are you really from? is published by Virago.


Book launch


You are warmly invited to join me for my book launch ‘Where are you from? No, where are you really from?’ On Sunday 24 March 2.30 in Central London, St James Piccadilly. I’ll be in conversation with Yasmin Alibhai Brown.


Register for your free ticket here: https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.eventbrite.co.uk_e_where-2Dare-2Dyou-2Dreally-2Dfrom-2Dtickets-2D850696595417-3Faff-3Doddtdtcreator

First published in Engage 28

BY AUDREY OSLER • May 20, 2024

36 Bicycles. Countless Futures in The Gambia.

By Ann Beatty • May 20, 2026
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. 

Education for Hope in Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous Times

By Laura Griffin • May 13, 2026
‘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

I heard it said today by a friend that “You learn a language best when you use it to speak and write about things that are important to you. ”

By Susan Piper • May 6, 2026
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.