We are delighted to welcome Professor Audrey Osler as a Patron for The Steve Sinnott Foundation

We are delighted to have Professor Audrey Osler joining the Foundation as a Patron. Her work in human rights has had a huge impact in the world and reflects an essential part of what we do and what we stand for.

Audrey is a Professor of Education at the University of South-Eastern Norway and at the University of Leeds, UK. She is Editor-in-Chief of ‘Human Rights Education Review’. She has expertise in working for reconciliation in post-conflict settings in Asia, Africa and the Middle East. Her most recent book is ‘Human Rights and Schooling: an ethical framework for teaching for social justice’ and she is currently writing ‘Where are you from? No, where are you really from?’ (Virago Press, 2022) drawing on history and memoir to discuss empire, migration and belonging.  

She works in the related but distinct fields of Human Rights Education and Education for Democratic Citizenship, and her research is interdisciplinary in nature, drawing on sociology, political science, and legal scholarship. She has a special interest in children’s democratic participation rights; teachers’ work and citizenship; and race, ethnicity and the experiences of minoritized groups, in both established democracies and post-conflict societies. She works transnationally, and so much of her research is comparative. 

Council of Europe General Rapporteur: Human Rights and Democracy in Action - Looking Ahead Education for Democratic Citizenship and Human Rights Education Conference 2012.

Presidential panel member: American Educational Research Association (San Francisco: 2005; New Orleans: 2011; Chicago: 2015; Washington DC: 2016) 

Interview with Professor Audrey Osler

 

We recently had the opportunity to interview Audrey about the importance of educating children about human rights. Her experience of teaching human rights spans right across the age range, which provides important insights. You can watch the video here, and read a summary below.



Audrey: “Often human rights is seen as something relating to distant places, whereas I think the most important thing for children of all different ages is to understand their own human rights and then understand how they can defend each other’s rights.


I would begin in a primary school with the things that the children were concerned with. Children of all different ages have very strong views about justice and injustice, right down to small children saying what is fair or unfair. We see lots of older students in school, under the age of 18, standing up to the really big issues. There are children all over the globe who are standing up for the rights of other children, and standing up for big causes like climate justice and environmental issues. It's really important that we find out what the children are interested in, what they care about, and that's the best way in to a discussion about human rights.


I trained as a teacher and I don't think human rights was ever mentioned in my own training. I have supported many different schools with these topics, because they were simply not on the agenda. It's very exciting for many children to find out that all children everywhere have the same rights. That really grabs their imagination, and they will point out that that's not true in practise, we all deserve these rights but how are we going to make sure that everybody is able to claim them.


I think children can be seen as human rights defenders. It shouldn't just be about teachers detecting a problem, children should feel confident to able to express a problem too. It’s really important that they know when they can confidently speak out, using the language of rights and helping them feel empowered.


Human rights dialogue in education is really important so that we can look critically at the human rights framework with teachers. It is better for teachers to engage with, understand and apply then to be given a set of rules which they just have to go along with.


We also need to recognise that human rights learning takes place outside the school too, it takes place in society, it takes place in homes, in many different contexts. Teachers need to know that they are part of a bigger whole. We also need governments that support human rights. A powerful thing about the international framework is that it actually legitimises some difficult topics.


There are lots of people working on these issues who care passionately about these issues. Local networks can help teachers, and there are materials out there to help teachers. The first book I ever produced looked at children's literature and how young children's storey books, including picture books, could be used to teach human rights. Storey books can be a fabulous resource and teachers read often read a storey to young children everyday, and this is an easy way of bringing these discussions into your everyday practise.


We can't always assume that things will always get better in a progressive path forward. I think we often have to take small steps and have a vision of where we want to go. I feel privileged that I was brought up by a mother who encouraged me to think I could do anything, and be anything. She was really very inspiring to me. If you don’t have that when you're very young then it can be quite an impediment. At school girls had a slightly different curriculum to boys, and we had to challenge what seemed unfair, so I was very aware of these things from a young age.


We need to give young people strategies to know what to do about a situation, rather than great principles. It is important to have a sense of confidence in your rights, because I actually think that what goes on for people and especially girls and women, is often just very subtle small things which undermine our confidence. That is how human rights are eroded.”




Once again, we are delighted to have Professor Audrey Osler with us, and we look forward to creating even more impact on the lives of woman and girls through their human right to access education.


Steve Sinnott • August 5, 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.