Background: As part of the Education and Social Justice Project, in the summer of 2022 undergraduate student Vikki Hengelbrok (C‘23) conducted semi-structured interviews with members and partners of Fundação Gonçalo de Silveira (FGS). In this interview Sara Borges, one of the project managers at FGS, discusses her experience working there and her insights into global citizenship education.
Okay, so let's start.
So, my name is Sara. I'm 42 years old, and I studied political science here in Lisbon. And I've been working in the social area, let's say, like this social economy organization, since 2004 and, no, sorry, 2006. And when I finished my degree in political science, I worked in human resources as a headhunter. And it was like the opposite. And then, I went to social economy organizations, and so, I started my career working with a [unintelligible], an NGO that works right here below. And I worked in cooperation projects for eight years. And so, I've been, I've lived in Mozambique, Angola, Sao Tome, and East Timor, and worked in many projects there. And so, in 2015, I made a sabbatical, I stopped working, and I went to do a master's degree in Coimbra.
I didn't finish my thesis. I have a problem with theoretical things and how you promote knowledge and how you link practice in theory. And so, in 2018, I started working with FGS. I have already knew it for a long time. And so, since I was coming from the development and cooperation sector, it was very easy to, well, to do this, to come from cooperation, development cooperation, to development education and global citizenship education. So, it was a very, very good starting point.
I work here, and, actually, after since 2018, I work in projects that are linked with schools that are linked to its higher education institutions. Sinergias project, I'm working on that one also, and I also work with civil society organizations like NGOs and that are implementing global citizenship, education, development, education projects in their communities. So, I think this is, I'm a Scout leader, and I'm a very, I don't know, is it comic? Is it comic?
Yes [laughs]. Were you always interested more in, like, the social justice field?
I think it was a process because, since very little, I'm a Scout, since I was six years old. And so, I'm a very hands-on things, projects, transfer meets, things, find a problem and find a solution to a problem. You find a solution, and especially to, well, throughout all my development, until I go to college, I was also very linked to the Catholic Church movements and to try to be involved, to engage myself in different types of social works. But it was very good because I started working in corporations and especially through human resources, and I just saw what I didn't want it, and I saw the capitalistic side of everything and how the market rules the majority of all the relationships that you create. And so, there was a point in 2004 I decided it's not for me. And so, then, I started doing a shift, and total shift, and starting to, like, I say, I'm a person who lives in a project cycle, always, throughout all my life, and depending on the things I work with social justice, it could be obviously equity. It's not equity. It's not. Well, we take with the other writing.
How do you say it in English?
It's not equality. Maybe, it's different because inequality means we are all in the same. Yeah. It's like, yeah. Different starting points. And so, we have to find the best level for all of those. So, yeah, that sustainable development is also an area I'm always very interested, especially due to working with kids, and in the Scouts movement, and also all the parties. That's got to do with participation and democratic participation. And so, social justice, it's like the value that aggravates. It's like a transversal line that gives coherence to all of this. So, yeah, yeah. I think that from very early on in my career, I understood that this is what I want to do.
You work on a lot of different projects, so I can imagine this question might be a little tough, but in terms of development education, what do you think is most needed, like, in the community that you work with?
Okay, let's go project by project. Yeah, maybe it's good thinking. Okay, I'll start with Sinergias. It's a project dedicated to knowledge and knowledge co-creation between education, institutions, professionals, academics, teachers from education institutions in Portugal, specific the educational institutions and civil society organizations that are linked to global citizenship education in Portugal. So, I would say that's one of the needs that we have the most needed one. I think it's the creation of a shared epistemology based on collaboration, co-creation, and horizontal perspective of how knowledge can be created, how knowledge can be tested, our knowledge can be disseminated. I think that this is a huge need. We need spaces to collaborate. We need spaces to create communities. We need spaces to share, practices to share what works, what doesn't work.
And also, I think that it's, especially nowadays, when you have a war in Europe, when you have populism growing, when you have, and it's like a fragmentation fractures inside society, I think that it's very necessary to find places where dialogue can happen. For on one side, dialogue can happen and also places where you can build a utopia. I do not mean, by utopia, I do not mean something that is totally far away and it's impossible to achieve. No, I think it's like, it's like some sort of social change which operates, like, in each day with the objectives, with the perspective you have for the world, you start building it. And so, I think, for example, Sinergias, it's a place where you can find, you can create small little pieces that inspire you for your practices, that inspire you to change, to social change, to social transformation, to social justice. So, I think for one side, this is an aspect if you're working with schools.
And it's funny because I'm speaking about this, and do you know Paulo Freire? So, I'm having a lot of ideas from Freire right now in my mind because it's the centenary of his office. And so, when you work with schools right now, I think that one of the problems…you had the [COVID-19] pandemic and so everyone is very tired and everyone looks at the system, at least in Portugal, the educational system in Portugal, it's a very compressed system when teachers, they do not want to be teachers because your career is so full. But above all that, you also have a mixed feeling that you understand that the system you've built, it's not giving answers to the future of the kids that you're educating.
So, the majority of the kids 10, 15 years ago, this was not the perspective. There are some studies that say that kids in Portugal, they do not like to go to school. It's an higher rate than it was 15 years ago because, somehow, we are preparing kids not to the future. They will have the challenges. They will have to face climate change out, to face a more fractured society out, to be able to choose and to live democratically. But we are teaching them, preparing them just to do an SAT. When it finish high school, just to go to college. And so, you're not giving them existential perspectives that can help them and bring that, can help them build bridges between now and in the future. You want to have as a society. And so, I think this is one of the problems with school. And so what is needed once again, I think that it's needed, and processes, and the building of relations, relationships between civil society organizations and schools that can inspire different ways of doing, and, maybe, we were speaking about this a few days ago, maybe, we need to train our creativity about the future.
And so, especially in the system right now, the educational system, we need creativity. We have to speak about global citizenship education, and to see what you can do about the future. Because nowadays, I use, always, a metaphor from Vanessa Andreotti. She always speaks about the eye of the hurricane. So, you have modernity, and it's a dying modernity, and you want to change to something else that it's coming, but you cannot totally see what it's coming. And so, you're in the middle of it. And so, I do think that this happens a lot, especially, for example, in schools. You do not see the future, and you do need to have a strong feeling of utopia. But you need to try to have creativity to see far beyond what's normal, far beyond what, what are the problems, and try to create solutions, starting locally, and then trying to change the system as it is. This is always the problem in global citizenship, and you are inside the system, and you're trying to change us based on different values. And that's a huge, huge challenge.
So, I think that there's another type of needs that is linked to civil society organizations, like our own NGOs. And it's a different need because, in the actual contexts, we need to see, how can we give answers to this unpredictable future? And so, you need to have possibilities, to have time and space to think. And normally, when you work in this sector, when you work in social areas, when you work in civil society organizations, you don't have time to think. You do not have time to reflect, to reflect with others, to better reflect on the things you do so that you can create different ways of doing. Because you're always trying to manage the urgencies. You do not have time to think about the priorities. It's, like, always a dilemma. It's a paradox, a total paradox that we live each day. And so, I think that's a huge need. We have the civil society organizations that it's a bit linked to collaboration, to collaboration environments, is that we need time and space to reflect and to do this practice right from theory and practice to allow—can we change for better? What can we do better? And I think that's a huge need right now.
Yeah, that's great. You talked a little about Vanessa, and working, and she, in one of her essays, writes about, like, the role that...and, like, global citizen education, and how NGOs have this kind of interesting role in activism, sort of. And I'm quite interested in how your perspective on, and how, like, NGOs' role in fostering global citizenship.
Okay. From the way I see it, and especially here through FGS, I think we are like an experimental site. So, where you can propose educational processes that help you build and live a global citizenship perspective. But I think that's one of the aspects. And since it's experimental, it's an experimental site. You always have a lot of challenges that, sometimes, they can go in a good way or, sometimes, it can have flaws. And I think that's one of the problems. Well, it's not a problem. It's one of the difficult things is, you're trying to change the system inside the system. And so, as an NGO, you're trying to use different languages, different ways of doing with other organizations that do not share the same culture as you.
And so, sometimes we are bridge builders, or there's a Portuguese sociologist [name]. I don't know if you know him well. He speaks about translations and cultural translations, and I think that's a bit the role we play as NGOs. We have to translate with other organizations that work in the system. How can we achieve, how can we build this global citizenship? And sometimes, these translations means not using the same terms, doing different perspectives of work, having different relationships, more horizontal, proposing different ways of building partnerships. And so, it's like trying to, on each day, we, the partnerships, we have to create different ways of seeing things. I think that's the biggest way we have to enroll in this, in building this global citizenship education. But it's a huge, huge challenge, especially because it's, exactly, it's, we have different cultures, and we have to translate the things we say, and try to find things that, to others, that other institutions do, and try to figure out, can you do a match? How can we speak? How can we connect and understand each other so that we can build something else from here, and so that we can build something that is linked to a global citizenship perspective. This huge way of saying, well.
What are some other, like, and what are some projects that FGS does for global citizenship?
Well, so, and one of the projects, I think I'm going to start with that one, and then we'll speak about others. But in terms of global citizenship education, we start to Sinergias. It's a good project because it started 13 years ago, almost. Well, in 2013, almost 10 years ago. And it was meant just to link people from civil society organizations and people from the academia, from universities that were researching global citizenship education, development education. And it's a, well, it's a perspective more focused on knowledge production, on the mainstream knowledge production. But it's a very good starting point. Another way of building global citizenship education in this area was to promote different relations exactly between higher education institutions and civil society organizations. And so, the collaboration and the horizontal relationships were created.
How did you do this?
So, we started matchmaking. The civil society organizations and universities. And so, they started collaborating. And, either they research together, they did studies, or, either they did events together or trainings; they are implementing them in different areas of culture so that you could have this perspective of global citizenship, education going further and reaching different territories. Country and rich in different institutions. So, this is a way of doing global citizenship education. So, it's a more institutional way in this project. And so, you build relations that can take you inside other institutions and bring this idea of global citizenship education.
When we work with schools, we work in different thematics, all the kind of thematics, because, like you say, global citizenship education doesn't have a thematic. Global citizenship education speaks about interdependence of thematics, speaks about the possibility of knowing, that is social justice. Equity. Well, does that. Well, that's one of my views. And democracy, and also sustainable development. That's the focus. It's the values that you also have to depend on, the critical thoughts that could, well, that's else you think about your positionality inside the system, and criticize it. So, I'm a woman, white. I have a degree. So, I am. And the place where I'm looking at world, it's an important place, and it's a starting place, but it's a different time from all the other people around you. It's a good, it's an education that speaks a lot about power relationships and how can you change them, or how can you, that, rarely speaking about this, you do not delete power relationships, they always exist. Yeah, the things that you have to, and to make them as more democratically as possible, and you do this in all the relationships you create.
That's why you speak about collaboration between higher education institutions and civil society organizations. You try to give, and, always, until view a democratic view of power relations. When you co-create, you code site, you do everything with others and rolling them in this perspective. And so, and, besides all these aspects, you also always have a very pedagogical way of doing global citizenship education. UFT, it's an experiential perspective. It's not the theoretical one where I can give you a paper saying, "Oh, this is the Declaration of Human Rights or uses in your life." It doesn't work like that. It's a total experiential way of doing things. So, you need to pursue the logical processes that are experiential. And then, also, there's different aspects that's got to do with you, how to live as a world.
Yeah, you have to be able to respect the other in all these, in all the differences. And so, when you have all this, all the processes we do in schools, either to a gender or gender equality, either to development, educated, sustainable development, either to...We have a project Sandra was enrolled in that, it was about the rights to the place, that it's linked to the possibility of your living in your city, in the rural area, and having a well-being promoted through there, not being put out of here, like, "Oh, Lisbon, it's getting gentrified, and the center, it's just services, and no one lives there anymore." So, you can always work each thematic through a global citizenship perspective. I think this is the best thing.
And so, when you speak about schools, you have to work always with students, teachers, the boards and well, sometimes, you can work with families and also with other civil society organizations or other institutions that are working in the school. And you try to give this perspective, a critical perspective, a relation, power relationship perspective, democratic one, and horizontal one to all the relationships you create. So, I think this is the way we do things to improve.
So, we have worked in many, many different areas, many different metrics, and we give training to teachers. We work with civil society organizations, and we promote, I don't know, for example, picked this one year, for example, we're doing cartoneros. It's a practice from Latin America. And the majority of people, when we speak about cartoneros book, it's all so funny. It's, just, we reuse a cardboard and just to reduce your carbon footprint and more. No, it's not. It's about how you democratize the use of the books. How can you edit something that it's yours? So, in this one, basically, we choose texts, and people do the editing of texts that you write, and in your class, in a group of people, we create something different, and we have our book.
And then, they decorate it?
Yeah. You do your own, your own covers, and it's in cardboard. Yes. It's a sustainable option, of course. But the most important thing is that you co-create, and you democratize. So, something that I don't know, with students today. It's very interesting. We did this. We are doing this with schools, with teachers, with people from civil society organizations. And it's a very good, it's a tool. But the most important thing, it's not a tool. It's the methodology and what is behind it, I think. Yeah. So, for me, this is a huge example of civil society education. How can we promote it? Yeah, it's not a tool. It's nothing like that. It's what's behind the invisible part of it. And that's why it's so difficult. Yeah, that's why it's so difficult to explain it. We normally say, when someone asks us, "What do you do? What's your job?" And he starts explaining, and they say, "So, you're a teacher?" No, I'm not the teacher. I work with civil society organizations and other organizations. You know, perspectives of a global citizenship is. "Oh, so it's about rights and duties." No, it's not about this. It's about changing the world. And people just look at you.
Yeah, it is very theoretical. And to put it, like, into pride, that's a very good example. The practical sort of, yeah.
And the problem is that, sometimes, in this area, we just focus on the techniques, you know, not see what's behind it. It's more than the methodologies, it's the epistemology that you have behind it. And it's huge, and it's important. But, well, it's, yeah, it's the principle of contingency rights. Things are only the things that can be at that moment. Yeah, they could be something else, but when we understand them, they're different. And so, I don't know if I answer your question.
You did. And how do you try and, like, avoid that technique perspective?
I do there, one huge thing we do here in FGS, and I think that it's now in the others, or in the other organization I work with, it was not like this, and I think it's the best. It's like a brand from FGS. We always working doubles or triples in terms of projects inside here and, always, all the projects we do, our in partnerships with others and, normally, with other civil society organizations. And so, normally, all the projects we implement, they have a specific methodology behind it. So, you co-create with the people you have, you identify the needs with them and you try to co-create everything you implement and then the techniques that you use. They are always circumstantial, so you can choose others. We have many that we use and then we always try to improve or to, well, there are some that are more specific in the way we do things, but I think that's in the long term. What's the brand is that we reflect and mentor reflectively. So, we do our semestral role. It will be at least six months.
Yeah. Yeah. Like a biannual review.
Yeah, exactly. We have biannual evaluations, internal evaluations among the teams partnerships. And then, what we do is, and more often, in some cases than others, we need to reflect on the way we were affected. Some people just left a lot. To me, that's, they joke and say that we are just like the reflexive ones. And so, when you do this, you are systematizing the way you think, the way you act. But more than that, you're bringing a lot of questioning and critical thoughts. And so, and in the majority of the cases, when we choose a technique, when we choose, we choose a method to do something. We have, it's very clear, from the beginning, the values that underlie the entire underlying and all the other perspectives that we have to achieve. Sometimes, it's very funny. I think that it's an aspect from global citizenship education and working in this area, that is, sometimes, when we start something, maybe we are the ones knowing everything that it's...
Right.
And that is beneath all the things that you are proposing. But in the majority of the cases, when we reach the end of the pedagogical process of the educational process of the project. The things we do with other people, people start recognizing all the steps we gave them. So, it's only at the end of it. You cannot, there are things you cannot explain during the process. You only win, and go to the end, to the ends. And you just look back, and you see. "Oh, that's right." "Oh, no, I see." "Yes, because this is." "Oh, so..." Yeah.
Could you give an example, like, maybe, of when that happened? Yeah.
So, for example, when I'm going to choose this one, but I could choose that one, too. It's very funny because when we do this, the majority of the people that come to us, they say, "Oh, I like so much of the covers and everything," and it's so funny. No, no, no, no. And so, we start from there. And so, we do workshops. The workshops start with the small video and a small video from a Brazilian publishing editor, Cartonero Publishing. And so, the people networks in Cartonero Publishing, publishers are people that they pick the cards, they sell it. And so, when they create books, it's also to to have a revenue, to have some kind of money. It's like a business, a very small business. And, normally, it's a cooperative. So, it's like as social economy perspective, solidarity and social economic perspective. And so, it's very funny, because the kids, and young people, and adults, they arrive at the workshop, and they only see the covers. And when you start speaking about why it happens, why it was built, then people start seeing other things. Just for example, that the book is a very huge perspective of social justice. If I do not have money, I cannot access the book, I cannot access knowledge. But if I do have the possibility to create my own book, I do have the possibility of putting my knowledge in the same level as the other knowledges. And so, people start understanding it. And it's a very good perspective. But when you start doing this and people are just painting the covers and everything, they just focus on a small aspect of it. Then, you have to do a huge debriefing, and I think it's the best part and the most difficult one. It's the debriefing of the process. So, to try to reach and to understand the depth of the things you did. So, and that's a challenge. It's not only a cover, it's…
Yeah, there's more behind it.
Yeah, yeah, exactly. It's impossible. The possibility of understanding that knowledge. Well that you have privilege at, well, as a starting point, this is a huge. It's a huge example because, for example, when it started in Latin America, it was exactly for people that were, I don't know, you see in English, they pick cardboard. So, for cooperatives and people with very low income here in Europe, it became like a fanzine, I don't know how you say it. So, it's like author perspective, example. You're a designer and you create this. So, in Europe, from our privileged point of view, we just use this, that it, it was that, it is one of the best way of cracking the system, and yeah. And just put it, and we mainstream, we put mainstream on it, and that's it. It became, a how can I say, it became just a simple author edition.
Very beautiful. It's very beautiful. But it's not the same thing.
Not the same thing at all, for sure.
So, this is a good example. Another good example, I think that it's when we started thinking, linking universities and civil societies, organizations to promote studies or to promote events, trainings, seminars. I don't know.
When we started Sinergias, and it was very funny because people, when they spoke, we said, “Look, we're going to do a process, and at the end, we're going to think about the process. Okay?” And so, normally, we are just focusing on the operational point of it's, "Oh, let's choose the team now. Are we going to do this?" The method though, "I like this, I like that." All of it was very good. We started, and we said, at the beginning, we must have shared objectives, shared goals between different institutions. Okay, so we defined the goals, and then at the end, we proposed that the process ended with the institutions enrolled in this collaborative studies or events or trainings. They would have to write an article about how did they collaborate. And so, it was very good because they had to think about it to matter of, like, the processes. And we read various things that you learn from the good things and the bad things. And so, it was very good to systematize. How can you collaborate? Why do you collaborate? Why don't you collaborate? And so, this is another perspective.
When you understand at the end of the process, when you just look back, and you have the possibility to reflect about it, to put critical thoughts on it, and to use different ways and perspectives, and to dialogue with others different than you. It's another perspective when only at the end you'll see the process. Yeah, it happens a lot. It's always like this.
Really?
And it's a problem, I think. It's not a problem. It's a challenge. But it's one of the most, for me, it's one of the most characteristic, since you have, you do not do things in this area for, at least for us. You do not do things for do the numbers, for the outcomes, you do things for the processes. But, and in a very specific way, when you speak about social transformation, social change, we prefer social transformation over that. There's a difference in Portugal, in the Portuguese language, you have mudanza, change, and transformation. When you move today, moving, it's just something that skips the same form. It just changes a bit. It's like I cut my hair. It's a change, you know, I want to transform it. I don't know how to give an example in the…
We have the same in English.
Well, so for us, it's the same. And when we speak about social transformation, we have a perspective from an author that is important in Europe, is linked to civil, to global citizenship education, and name is Prose. Prose. I don't know how you say it, but it says that social transformation, you can never control it because you can always, you can, the only thing you can do is start something knowing the intentionality you have. But the outcome, what will come, you cannot control it. It's not possible at this moment, due to the complexity of the system and due to all the things. And so, when we speak about outcomes in this area, for us, it's very difficult because we know what we want to achieve. We have this utopia that brings us in each day to build things, to do differently. But I cannot tell you, "Oh yeah, in 30 years it's going to be..." No, I can't. Yeah, it's impossible.
Right. I feel like we live in a very outcome-oriented society. Can that be challenging sometimes? Working with other organizations and governments?
Today, with funding, yeah. It's also because we speak a lot about that, because what's happening in terms of at least in Europe 10, 15 years ago, you would have the possibility to have funding for three, four, or five years. And so, you would have funds, and you could say, “Look, I'm going to do this, this, this, and this as activities.” And you could say, “I think I'm going to achieve this,” and you could do a more qualitative approach to the things that you would achieve. But, nowadays, you have fundings that are one year, and they ask you: What are the impacts and outcomes? And you say, “Look, an impact is something that you only see 10 years. How do you want me to speak about impact?” What about outcomes? How many people, how many books? How many publications? How many articles? How many? So, it's like, well, I think it's the problem of the market. So, here we live our area, our sector. It only works with funding, with financial flows. And so, you need to have this as a market. Yeah, you have more kids. You put more kids on your project. Go, I give more money. So, it's difficult, but it's something very mainstream. It is something very associated from society. So transversal to all the things we do.
