The Power of Thought

This post was originally published through Project DEFY - an innovative educational model working in Bangalore, India, to support creativity, innovation and unlearning. Explore their website here: www.projectdefy.org

Our education systems are broken. This is not new news, nor is it surprising; many countries have failed to really “update” their education systems at all over the last fifty to one hundred years, instead allowing the world to march merrily on and leave the educational foundations lingering in the era of factory-line production.

Herein lies the issue so many students across the world are facing – their education system is training them to be robots: teaching them to follow a system in which they are trained to follow orders, absorb information and amalgamate amongst the masses.  Critical thinking, individual development and creativity are so often pushed to the side-lines in favour of standardisation, regulation and target-driven quality control.

Asking questions is one of the most powerful tools that we, as individuals, can wield in the world. Questioning what we are told - what is being presented to us as fact - is vital in this ever-changing world, where the microphone is given to anyone with the internet and an opinion, and where “facts” no longer need to be true.  However, so often, learning within a formalised school system isn’t able to give students the time or space to think for themselves and question the world around them. They are certainly not given the time to contemplate what they are learning; what it may mean to them and why it is being taught.

Time is a limiting factor within classroom learning and often reflection is left to the students to do elsewhere. The question “Why?” may well be one of the most important words which we use: it allows us to stop, reflect, consider and respond with meaning and understanding, and yet this is something that our education systems rarely encourage. Head down, absorb and regurgitate – no questions asked – seems to be our current route to pedagogical success.

ThoughtBox has been created to challenge this system. Our education philosophy believes in the importance of critical thinking: challenging students to “unlearn” stereotypes and assumptions and allow new understandings of seemingly familiar issues to emerge.

Developing a series of weekly lessons focusing on global topics - with students

encouraged to ask questions, rather than learn answers - ThoughtBox is an online curriculum with a vision to encourage critical thinking, empathy and global tolerance; a product of one teacher’s frustrations at the limitations of the education system in which she was working.

The fundamental importance to us all, as individuals, to be able to think for ourselves and to question the world around us is built into all of the curricular - designed without a rigid end goal; simply as a tool to engage students’ minds. Being able to look at an issue and pause, reflect and consider a range of views is a tremendously valuable skill. Understanding that there is often no “right way” to see something is part of empathy building and a way for us to learn to tolerate difference in opinion and belief.

Learning in formal lessons often has an end goal; a “right answer” or a correct way of seeing things. Yet in reality, life just isn’t like that. Every day there are a hundred thousand answers to our potential questions; each of us channelling our own thoughts about what is right, what is wrong, which way is up, which way down. ThoughtBox allows students to see the world through different eyes; to challenge feelings of empathy and to encourage new ways of thinking. Building empathy is a vital skill for a globalised world; being able to live harmoniously within our ever-globalising environment being crucial to a successful future.

An innovative thinker once said: “The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn and relearn.”

Unlearning is a skill that we all need to practise. This style of learning is one of the most crucial ways for us all to live, grow and adapt successfully with the rapidly changing world. There is no shame in changing your mind: no negative in casting aside old knowledge when it needs to be ‘updated’; no failure in re-learning how to see the world. In fact, in many ways it is a sign of wisdom to be able to have the courage to re-think and change our thoughts. After all, there is no finality when it comes to thinking and learning.

Stop, look and listen

Although a non-partisan organisation, ThoughtBox is supportive of an initiative called The Labour Campaign to End Homelessness. ThoughtBox Director Rachel Musson was recently asked to write a short article for their campaign page exploring empathy-in-action when it comes to dealing with homelessness.

What do you do when you walk past someone on the street? Pretend they’re not there? Give them money or offer a friendly smile? Wonder how they ended up there?

Homelessness is not a choice, and understanding that it could happen to any of us at any time is just one step in trying to support the ever growing numbers of homeless communities across the world. As economic pressures continue to bite; as welfare systems struggle to support the most vulnerable; as climate change and natural disasters rob people of their homes and civil wars force people to flee their lands, more and more people are finding themselves homeless and displaced…through no choice of their own.

However, there is a judgemental stigma attached to homelessness that is hard to shake off – and the negative way we collectively think and feel about homeless people in our communities across the world is unfortunately a large part of the problem. By reducing people down in our judgements, we are failing to see how suddenly and easily people can (and do) become homeless, and how we are all just a couple of steps away from being on the street ourselves.

Understanding how to support homeless communities does not start and end on the street - it begins much further back by trying to understand some of the root causes of homelessness and work to prevent them in the first place. The circumstances leading to homelessness are many: loss of employment, domestic abuse, relationship breakdowns, mental health issues, lack of affordable housing...the list goes on and does not take into account external forces causing high numbers of global displacement.

Whilst living for a while in Pokhara, Nepal, I was stuck by the large numbers of street children living rough on the banks of the Phewa Lake. Family break-down, poverty; urbanisation and overcrowding; dislocation through migration and civil war; child labour, loss of family members; exploitation by adults; emotional abuse or neglect, the rising number of street children remains a significant problem across Nepal. Hand-outs might be keeping these children alive, but when listening to some of the stories of why these children ended up where they were, it seemed clear how this level of hand-out charity was merely perpetuating the problem and supporting a negative cycle: the problems of homelessness were being soothed rather than solved.  

If you choose to listen, you will hear the same stories from homeless people everywhere. I have heard them told time and again as I have travelled around the world: in Lima, Peru; in Arusha, Tanzania; in London, UK; in Kampala, Uganda. Esther Kidden, a refugee from Sudan, found herself fleeing from civil war to Kampala when she was nine years old to seek refuge with her mother’s sister, but consequently ended up on the streets following systematic abuse by this same aunt. A lack of social support and governmental aid meant that Esther’s choices were bleak. However, by sharing her story with people who stopped to listen, she was given a hand up (through a place at SINA, a social-innovation academy) and is now working on developing a street-kids rehabilitation centre, using her own experiences to support others. By listening, rather than judging, we are taking one very large step towards tackling the root causes of homelessness.

Although there are many organisations working in communities across the world to help displaced people to get back on their feet, many are still focusing on treating the symptoms of homelessness, rather than the cause. Understandable – these are not easy-fix issues, and offering material support (food, clothing, shelter) to someone rough-sleeping is a very positive first step in care. But it is not the only thing we should be doing and all of us have the chance to offer our support beyond this – without spending a penny.

“A hand up not a hand out” is a maxim used by many organisations supporting homeless communities; working to get people back on their feet and finding a new pathway in life. Moving beyond this, it is positive to see governments now recognising that many of the ripple effects leading to a rise in homelessness on our streets are pieces in the same jigsaw puzzle.

We as individuals can now help by working to remove the stigma associated with rough sleeping. Seeing the homeless, I mean really seeing them as fellow human beings; understanding that their story is just one or two moves away from our own, is a tremendous first step in offering support. Stopping, looking and listening to people’s stories goes a long way in supporting people on the streets, helping us to better understand where we need to channel our attentions in the wider community to try to prevent these stories from perpetually being re-told.

Treating the homeless as the problem is the problem, and so by listening and learning to empathise with some of their struggles - without judgement - we can begin to remove the negative stigma and come together to work on treating the causes (not just the symptoms) of homelessness.

This article was originally published on the news page for The Labour Campaign to End Homeless website. Click on the link to visit the page: http://lceh.org.uk/campaign-updates/stop-look-and-listen/

Unlearning in Uganda

Last week, I took a little trip to Uganda. Being separated across the shores of Lake Victoria, Uganda is just a stone’s throw from Tanzania in relative terms, and fairly easy to get to. Having been in contact with an innovative education project called SINA (nestled up in the mountains of Mpigi, a few hours’ drive from the capital Kampala) I decided to pay them a visit whilst still living out here in East Africa.

SINA (Social Innovation Academy) is a unique learning environment empowering youth to become job creators by nurturing innovative project ideas into social enterprises. The Social Innovation Academy (SINA) is turning around life stories of suffering into positive catalysts of social change.

The goal of SINA is to bring Ugandan youth from marginalised backgrounds to the point where they can be self-sustainable by starting and leading their own projects in the form of social businesses (with positive impact on the environment and positive impact on society).

Education is given through coaching, mentoring and training, with students learning to take responsibility, unlearning limiting beliefs and receiving assistance with start-up businesses and social entrepreneurship. The education project is transcending the country’s rigid educational model through a unique “free-sponsible” educational approach: there is no governance in the school, no rules and ultimately no restrictions.

Where did the need for SINA come from?

Watch this video to learn more about the thinking behind the school: 

Free-sponsible Education

One of the first things that struck me upon arrival at SINA was the lack of hierarchy and management. There are no rules, there are no people “in charge” as it were; instead the academy is run through a series of learning groups. each group taking responsibility for a different area of the school. The academy consists of scholars and facilitators (the equivalent of students and teachers) however the scholars run the academy together with the facilitators in autonomous task and responsibility groups. They can make independent decisions in their areas, a concept which empowers the scholars from the beginning to take on responsibilities and grow with them constantly. The goal is that a scholar will successfully lead a social enterprise when they leave the academy, and for that to happen, he or she needs to be able to make important decisions, structure time and set priorities. SINA lets the scholars run its academy to allow empowerment to be learned from within. 

The five learning groups are:

1.  Sustainability

2. A-Team

3. Communications

4. Foundation

5. Community Learning

Group meetings to discuss some of the week's issues.

Each group meets twice a week to discuss some of the core matters arising (e.g. budget for the week’s food, accommodation issues, waste problems, social unrest etc.) and they try to end each meeting with a resolution of what they can do. If they are unable to solve these problems alone, they are then carried over to the weekly “Hub” meeting, wherein a representative from each of the five groups meets together with a facilitator to try to make plans to tackle any unresolved issues. I sat in on several of these meetings during my visit and was interested to observe a range of approaches to running a meeting and to conflict resolution.

An introduction to unlearning and innovation

Students are encouraged to “unlearn” the methodologies of rote and reaction from their formal schooling, unleashing their full potential through intrinsic motivation rather than punishments and rewards. They work through a series of learning stages, choosing themselves when they are ready to graduate to the next stage. 

The seven learning stages that all scholars move through are:

1. Orientation
2. Confusion
3. Skill Development
4. Imagine
5. Concentration
6. Linking
7. Graduation

The model of learning has been crafted using a range of educational ideas, including NVC (Non-Violent Communication),  Self-Organisation, Active Listening, Design Thinking, Ideation Workshops, Conflict Transformation and Team Building (learn more here). After the introduction stage, students spend time in “confusion”. 

Scholar Julie wearing one of her designs.

I talked with one of the scholars, Julie (co-founder of fashion start-up Smart-Up), about this stage and she explained, “It is a period where you spend time trying to forget the habits from school, trying to understand that you can be the master of your own fate and you don’t have to follow everybody else”. 

Speaking with the scholars during my stay, it seems that “Confusion” is the most challenging stage for most of the community. It is a time wherein they have to get used to being in a school with no rules, structure, discipline or order and have to learn that they are the boss of themselves. As Julie said “if I want to spend all day every day sleeping, I can do. But I soon realised that it was only me that was going to make my life a success, and so I soon learned to motivate myself and find my inner ambitions.”

 During stage 3 (Skill Development), students are introduced to a range of skilled projects happening within the community. SINA focuses on community, empowerment and sustainability, modelling the concept of upcycling within the village itself. All of the learning spaces are built out of old plastic bottles filled with soil and turned into “bottle-bricks”.

The bottle huts - with a selection of sustainable roof options.

The constructions of the classrooms form part of the project-based learning approach and training curriculum, with facilitators and scholars working together in the academy to create their learning spaces. Through this, a sense of ownership and motivation is created and scholars are empowered to think beyond the conventional and to come up with their own creative solutions to some of Uganda’s challenges.

It took just one month to build this - using 18,000 waste plastic bottles!

Bottles are carefully placed into the walls to create unique designs.

Watch this short video to find out more about the building, design and development process: 

The bottle construction runs as a social business for some of the scholars (as does the interlocking brick business – an innovative design using a third of the resources and manual labour as it cuts out the need for cement and burning of bricks). 

Clever use of interlocking bricks to cut
 down on labour, materials and time.

Another social business that has become a success is Sengozi - an innovative Ugandan company founded in November 2014 producing the world’s first Terrazzo and Epoxy Floorings out of plastic bags 

A beautiful floor - made of eggs and plastic bags!

and egg shells. The organisation uses plastic waste from the local area and the wasted egg shells from a nearby poultry factory to turn into durable and long-lasting flooring and tiles for houses.

.

The SINA cockerel - a survivor with ambition!

One of the scholars introduced the rather feisty resident cockerel to me, a refugee of another sort as he was found inside one of the waste shells one day, and was thus raised and nurtured by the SINA community to become the strong, wise cockerel he is today!

As well as the three core business models, there are a range of income generating skills that the students can choose to learn during their stay. These include:

1. Craft making

2. Book making

3. Agriculture

4. Sweater knitting

5. Chakula Bora (a canteen)

6. SINA Village (an accommodation area for tourists and visitors)

A stay in SINA Village

Traditional mud-huts in SINA village

During my visit to SINA I stayed up at the academy, sleeping in SINA village. This is a short walk from the main learning area and has been constructed as a traditional East African village, with five basic mud huts containing a bed and mosquito net... and that's about it. 

My room!

The accommodation has been deliberately built to be basic, to give visiting tourists or friends a chance to experience living in an old-style traditional East African village made from natural materials available on the surrounding mountainside.

Simple sleeping - all you need!

Sleeping in the hut was a beautiful, peaceful experience and a really interesting return to simplicity. The bio-gas 

All materials for the hut construction 
are found on the hillside.

toilet and bucket shower also allow tourists to explore sustainability within the village itself, whilst the nearby smallholding grows much of the food served at the academy and enhances the sense of sustainable living within the village and wider community.

The Scholars

Part of the focus of SINA is to offer marginalised youth an opportunity to support their own futures. As such, many of the scholars have been recruited from one of the largest refugee camps in Uganda, Kyangwali refugee settlement located in Hoima District South West Uganda and home to over 20,000 refugees.

During my time at SINA, four new scholars arrived from the camp (coming from Sudan, Congo and Burundi) and I spent time with Beatrice, a Congolese refugee and aspiring artist.

Beatrice left her home five years ago and had been living in the camp with her surviving family. During that time she harnessed her passion for art, working on a series of political cartoons to start putting together a portfolio. With a clear talent for drawing combined with a strong voice advocating for change, Beatrice told me how she hopes one day to use her work to inspire movements across the world.

Smart-up fashion (plus a view of the bottle hut wall on the inside)

I also met with Julie and Derrick, founders of Smart-Up, a clothing and accessories business and Edgar, a phenomenally talented painter whose business idea is to turn treasured photographs of memories into pieces of art. His business is called Walyendo Edgar and he has reached the Graduation stage of the SINA learning process and is already selling his artwork across the region and in Europe:

Edgar the artist finishing one of his pieces

SINA start-ups

Having now run for almost two years, SINA has seen several of its scholars graduate and start up their own businesses. One of the biggest success stories is Ruth Nabembezi, the founder of 'Ask Without Shame', a mobile app providing emergency sex education and advice. 

Ruth's App Start-up

Speaking about sex in Uganda is considered a taboo, and many youth have little or no access to vital information they need about their own sexual health. Ruth grew up in an orphanage because both of her parents died of HIV. Her sister also contracted the illness but when she fell sick, she was taken to a witch doctor because the neighbours in the village thought she was being possessed, rather than sick. Sadly she also passed away. Ruth knew that if she had been diagnosed and treated by medical experts, she could still be alive. As a reaction to her own tragedies, she founded the startup Ask Without Shame to provide a much needed free and confidential service to her fellow Ugandans. 

Ask Without Shame - a video introduction from Ruth

Finding inspiration from personal history, tragedy and experience is part of what drives many of the scholars within their start-up ideas and I was fortunate to meet with an incredible number of inspired and inspiring youth who are working to promote positive change in their communities.

Reflections

I had been interested in SINA for a while and was keen to visit to be able to learn more about their unique educational model. The concept of unlearning and finding knowledge from within is a core focus for ThoughtBox and I was keen to link up with the SINA community to share ideas and to learn more. There were many positive things happening within the community, but there were also many challenges which an organic learning community such as this is perhaps bound to have.

Because no-one is in charge, there were times when certain elements which could have been addressed were not being thought about - such as providing visitors with information about where to wash, eat, find water and how to find their way in the dark to the village...information that would have been rather useful to myself but were discovered in the end - much active learning was had (and a fair few tumbles in the dark!)

I also felt that the learning groups, although positive in their self-sustained model, were sometimes passing the problem from one group to another, with no-one perhaps taking charge and choosing to face the issue. Another element that really struck me about the place was a lack of communal space for all of the scholars and facilitators to come together - students ate in their rooms or scattered around the mountainside, and apart from a morning meeting which many didn't come to, there were no occasions (or opportunities) for the community to come together which I felt was a shame in such an isolated area. However, as is the nature of organic learning models, these are all elements that over time will be explored and adapted and learned from within.

And finally

My trip home was one of the highlights of my East African travel thus far. On the way up to the village, it took six hours of public transport as the main road had been closed because of a presidential visit (not a highlight!) so it was back roads on the matatu (the local mini-bus) for a long, dusty and bumpy journey:

Beautiful red-dirt roads of the Kampala countryside

Coming back I decided to take the "short cut" which would be a two hour journey as oppose to six - a much better idea. It was a little more adventurous but a great deal more fun. It began with an hour long piki piki ride (motorbike taxi) along some incredible red-earth roads, passing through lush jungle and beautiful countryside. The video gives a little snapshot, though apologies for the rather poor one-handed back-of-a-motorbike video skills!

I then took a rather random ferry (with a somewhat perilous amount of trucks filled with sand piled onto the deck) across the lake: 

How many cars can you put on a little ferry 
shuttle and still stay afloat...?

..quite a lot it seems!

and then another matatu, another piki piki and a lovely serene walk along the shores of Lake Victoria before heading back to Arusha.

All in all, it was a random, remarkable and inspiring visit and I look forward to following the progress of the scholars as they move through their learning journeys.

For more information on SINA visit their website: www.socialinnovationacademy.org