How far would you walk to school each day?
In one of their trips to Rural Gambia, The Gambia Teachers Union (GTU) saw students walking long distances to school under the hot burning Sun (40 degrees and more) often without proper shoes. This causes a lot of students to drop out of school or come late, and this affects performance and retention.
Teachers at Njoren School, in the Upper River Region of The Gambia, noticed that Lamin, one of their students had holes in his shoes, and eventually had to walk bare foot. The teachers were concerned when he explained that his parents could not afford to buy any more shoes, they wore out so quickly, as he lived an hours walk away and they were concerned he would stop attending school altogether.
When Marie Antionette, General Secretary of GTU (Gambia Teachers Union), heard this story she discussed ideas with the teachers in the region and they decided that many of the children needed bicycles to get to school. She contacted the Steve Sinnott Foundation to see if they could provide funds for them to buy bicycles locally to give to the children who lived far from their schools.
We were able to help, and now students in Bollybana School, in the Upper River Region of The Gambia have received bicycles from the Gambia Teachers Union through the support of the Steve Sinnott Foundation. Now Lamin and many other children at his school have bicycles to get to school. They are not tired when they get there, their shoes are not wearing out and they are able to concentrate at school.
Education is a basic human right, and sometimes the obstacle to getting an education is simply that the school is hard to get to.
Some communities are very isolated and consequently some students have to walk 9km to school every day, that’s an 18km round trip. In one of the remote schools in the Lower River Region of The Gambia some of the children walk the equivalent of 50 miles a week to get to school and back. Long journeys to school result in students arriving late, being too tired to study when they are there and some students don’t enrol at school at all. Walking long distances in the heat can also be dangerous.
Bicycles enable students to get to school more easily, and safely. There is a huge impact on their performance at school too, as they are more able to study effectively.
When they received these bicycles the students were overjoyed. They are so keen to get an education, even if it does mean walking long distances to get there, but having a bicycle enables them to get far more out of their education.
Educators are also delighted to see the children at safely at school, on time and not too tired to work. They can enjoy teaching and see the children thrive.
If you want to support more children to cycle to school you can buy the gift of a bicycle here:
Steve Sinnott • June 8, 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
