Facing up to our Collective Responsibilities

Billy Jean is the Steve Sinnott Foundation Project Manager in Haiti.

Ordinarily we wake up every morning to continue our daily activities which preserve our lifestyle. The survival instinct is a shared affair, our self-esteem and the well-being of the people who are dear to us are the real factors that most often guide our actions and thoughts.

It is clear that the world around us is changing by leaps and giant steps. The generations that coexist in the contemporary world face the irreversible phenomenon that is globalization. Through this process, the national product, capital and labour markets become more tightly integrated across borders. There is therefore an influx of goods, services and people around the world. Production is internationalized and manpower is more available. So the world is experiencing great technical progress.

However, we all know that despite this progression, there are values which are attached to human dignity that we are eternally inseparable from. We cultivate those values in our family and in the world around us. They have a very close connection with education and culture. The feeling of being oneself, feeling loved, accepted and respected or the simple fact of not being invisible to the eyes of others; these are natural feelings felt by all.

Unfortunately, generations have inherited several obstacles that hinder common well-being in society that can be brought together under the term “discrimination”.

Normally we can consider the source of these stereotypes in relation to the social constructions which have been the work of people over the years.

According to arbitrary criteria, we categorize people as white or black, man or woman, expatriate or immigrant, beautiful or ugly, rich or poor etc ... So, prejudice presupposes first of all a perception that we have of certain categories, there are “us” and there are “them”. Thus, this way of categorizing “us” and “them” puts us in a situation of abstract separation in society.

Many of us are ready to defend until our last day, our homeland, our identity and the community to which we belong. We are concerned about leaving juicy economic legacies for our children. Few of us think of leaving a better society for them. It is in the face of this major challenge that we find ourselves today in the world. Now is no longer the time to try to provide individual solutions to common problems.

Threats such as climate change, utopian wars fought at the whim of heads of government, the endless fight against injustice to

women around the world, famine in African countries whose subsoil is full of natural resources, the desperation that forces people to leave their country in search of a better life in an unknown world, the children who are expelled from their school because of frizzy hair and many other challenges are still present today.

It is very easy to feel too tiny and helpless to change these things. But I believe that everyone has a moral responsibility to

no longer be a passive citizen or a mere observer of these things. It’s a holy challenge. We cannot separate our destiny from

the rest of the others. In truth, we are all in the same boat.

Education is one of the most effective means to remedy phenomena which are harmful to a society. It’s a massive building

tool. Striving for a global and equitable education is very important for economic development and the distribution of social justice in the world.

Social progress, which means that children from poor families must logically break free of the poverty in their genealogical chain, is closely linked to the opportunity of benefiting from a quality education.

Thus, it is the responsibility of each of us to contribute to this laudable cause in order to make a difference to an undeniable

emergency still facing the world today.

From Engage issue 20.

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BILLY JEAN • August 13, 2021

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.