From Dreams to Reality

Karen Merkel

Non-Executive Director on the UK’s National Commission for UNESCO, Through my role as a Non-Executive Director on the UK’s National Commission for UNESCO, I am familiar with UNESCO’s Associated Schools Network (ASPnet) whose work contributes to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal 4 on Education for All. This unique network could become the route for supporting children (and girls in particular) across Africa to follow up N*Gen’s activities and explore ideas for their futures that involve Science - it would be so good to turn this dream into a reality. 

Purpose


 UNESCO’s Institute for Statistics says; “less than 30% of the world’s researchers are women ... to truly reduce the gender gap, we must go beyond the hard numbers and identify the qualitative factors that deter women from pursuing careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics”. No-one says this will be easy. With insecure livelihoods, scarcity of basic resources such as clean water, people are challenged to ensure their families are housed, healthy and educated - exacerbated by the pandemic. This makes it hard to prioritise the ambitions of young girls and sadly, we know this is inevitable for many living in Africa. However, doing something about it need not be. 

Peripheral Vision International (PVI), rooted in Uganda and Tanzania with a North American base, decided to contribute proactively in this arena. Inspired by generations of children’s science shows e.g. “3-2-1 Contact”, “NOVA” and “Cosmos” Dr. Joy Kiano, N*Gen’s Global Ambassador said; “We can make Science TV programmes that show how exciting Science is AND what girls can do alongside boys”. PVI found donors to support a pilot season and N*Gen was born. 


Connection


Educational broadcasting for children is complex as to succeed, programmes must connect quickly and directly with them and do so with consistency, clarity and energy. It’s notoriously tricky to win and keep children’s attention, especially if concentration is involved and it is not schooltime. Each element of content has to deliver its promises. Children have little patience if they don’t feel involved and one key to this is for them to see their peers actively engaged on their screens. When this all-important connection really has been made, children will be loyal, especially if they feel welcomed into a wider community of viewers like themselves. 


Belonging


Thanks to the popular film, “Hidden Figures”, many learned for the first time about the pivotal work of 3 female African-American mathematicians working at NASA as the brains behind John Glenn’s launch into orbit. The task is both to inspire children and shift the balance so that it becomes unremarkable to depict women at work in scientific arenas. N*Gen programmes have a straightforward approach with role models washed across each programme and young girls asking experts questions. This doesn’t exclude boys, they are represented and equally engaged, it’s simply that girls take the lead. Similarly, the majority of the expert ‘explainers’ are women and uniquely, all the expert Scientists are African.


Alongside Akim Mogaji, I’m a partner in New Media Networks (an international media company delivering content, training, research and evaluation). PVI commissioned us to distribute the programmes to broadcasters across Africa, write Season 2 and evaluate N*Gen’s Season 1 where a key request from parents and care-givers was for Science clubs to be established around the programmes. The now vast community of N*Gen’s young viewers across Africa could be strengthened between episodes through participating in activities they’ve seen modelled in the programmes. However, this is not straightforward if children don’t have easy access to resources for making items and little autonomy or agency to bring things about. 



First published in Engage 23.

BY KAREN MERKEL • May 18, 2022

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.