Creativity, Representation and Human Rights

Nicolet Nguyen is our newest team member working on Marketing and Communications for the Foundation.


Over the last month or so, I have been honoured to work with the Steve Sinnott Foundation managing their communications and marketing. This has provided me with the opportunity to create social media posts and new ways of engagement for the team themselves and also ways they can communicate with their supporters. Coming from a Film and TV production background I’ve managed to adapt the skills and knowledge I’ve learned through my experiences to this team. I have been able to create ways for young people to interact and I have come up with new ideas on how to create posts that invite supporters to take a more active role.

 

This experience has, thus far, taught me a range of new skills, including how to make content that is accessible and easily understood to create a clearer, more open form of communication. To further develop my expertise, I spend a significant amount of time on social media to learn how to actualize my posts and to build a growing audience. I have noticed that most people try to be sophisticated which often leaves their supporters behind, or people may overlook the content creator altogether as they can’t find a way to connect. I tried changing this by adding modern text quotes from movies and anime, which I think helps younger people engage a little more and helps people relate to the content. My main approach is “show not tell” as much as I can, meaning that I focus on the visuals more and less on the text on the image of the post itself. Any feedback on the posts is always much appreciated as I’m still new and learning as I go along!


The most recent launch of Creating Change - The World I want to Live in Competition is based on understanding and appreciating Human Rights. I think Human Rights and creativity are both crucial and important. At the end of the day, there is only one race and that is the Human Race. I believe that the arts and creativity play an essential role in our society today to aid and provide key information to be spread. It can be and should be one of the biggest tools for education, letting children use their imagination and creativity to release their true feelings into the world, so that they can tell their side of the story.

 

With that being said, I’m always passionate about giving young people a voice and letting them be heard and seen. I’m currently working for my 3rd year with Sing A Book CIC who produce musical theatre for children aged 6 - 18 and the over 55’s from African, Caribbean and Asian backgrounds, who have been underrepresented in the theatre. These productions made me realise how the arts and creativity, in general, are important to inspire and help underrepresented groups and help engage them in new skills they will have for life.

 

Link to Nico Creates, and What I Do.




First published in Engage 24.

NICOLET NGUYEN • August 8, 2022

In Harmony With Peace Concert

By Ann Beatty • June 1, 2026
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.

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