Why change needs to be Global
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. Over the past year and a half we saw the virus spread rapidly across the world. We are all connected across the world.
If we eradicate Covid19 from the UK it will be back in a heartbeat. If we have a vaccination programme in only the wealthy countries, a new variant could bring us all back to square one. We need to eradicate it from 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 are still going to affect people across the world.
Despite improvements over the past decades, progress towards achieving education for all has stagnated and close to 260 million children are not able to access education. In some countries where children do go to school, they are not always able to complete their education.
It is often children from the poorest households, who live in rural areas and particularly girls who are not able to access education.
Marginalisation based on socio-economic status, gender, ethnicity, language, religion and location are all contributors to education inequality. The Covid-19 pandemic has compounded the inequalities children face in accessing their human right to education.
Lack of education, and therefore opportunities, in one part of the world leads to environmental degradation, loss of species, disruption of ecosystems leading to extreme weather and natural events, activities increasing global warming, and viruses jumping species. These things affect the globe.
So in the same way that we have to eradicate Covid19 from the globe, we also have to make education accessible throughout the globe. We are all connected, and a problem created in one place will affect everyone.
We have challenges in the UK and we are all rightly concerned about how we can fix our own problems locally. But we also need to think differently and work on ways to find solutions to problems globally, if we don’t, we will all be adversely affected in a wide range of ways. Working on a global level is a better safety net, and the only truly sustainable way to move forward.
Global change also needs to be achieved at grass roots level, chosen, developed and applied by the local people and culture of each area. It has been proven many times in our partnership work that If people are given the opportunity and work together they can find the unique solution that will work for them long term. That way it is not only sustainable but also is preserving and respecting culture and national differences.
The Steve Sinnott Foundation is working at a grass roots level to make a change to education in our partner areas. We share learning and adapt and replicate projects that allow children and young people access to education and opportunities, which we know from experience make a real difference to peoples’ lives. We will continue reaching out to people, connecting people in different countries, opening an international dialogue about the necessity of Education For All.
Steve Sinnott • August 31, 2021
On Friday evening ( 29 May, 7.00 pm The Actors Church Covent Garden) we had the pleasure of listening to this very special concert, bringing together the Choir of King's College London and the Princeton High School Orchestra in a celebration of international friendship, collaboration, and shared values. This project reflects a commitment to peace, sustainability, equality, and cultural exchange, uniting young musicians from the United Kingdom and the United States through the universal language of music.
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
