Well Teachers is an apartheid free zone.

And here’s why.

Before I left Cambridge.

For almost five years I held a full time role at Cambridge University Press and Assessment based in Dubai, as a PD Specialist supporting the MENA region.

In the final year of my work there, I had taken on a voluntary role serving as the Co-Chair of the internal Anti-Racism Network.

Shortly before I resigned around January/February '24, in my co-chair capacity, I organised an event for the network with a colleague in South Africa who had lived through and contributed to the dismantling of apartheid in South Africa.

She had experienced life under apartheid, and life beyond it.

And in that session, she explained that sanctions economically were the single biggest force that sped up the end of apartheid.

Disheartened by this, given that economic sanctions against the illegal settler-colonial entity of 'Israel' are nowhere near in place yet, I asked her:

Short of sanctions, what is the next most important thing to do?

Community-led initiatives.

'Rely on community driven initiatives', my colleague said.

She explained that community led initiatives were the one thing that contributed significantly to change, and one thing she regrets were discontinued post-apartheid. She said they would have been helpful in ensuring systems of oppression do not reappear, as they have done in many ways in South Africa since.

It's not complicated. It's apartheid.

I am ashamed I always thought it was ‘too complicated’ before October 7th, 2023.

It took me a short time, a couple of powerful videos, articles and voices on social media for me to realise it it is not in the least complicated.

Simply:

Occupation is illegal.

Resistance in any form is not.

And so, while there were also other contributing reasons I chose to step out from Cambridge, Palestine was at the core of it.

It fundamentally shook me and forced me into taking the kind of actions that I never thought I would before that.

Adhering to Principles of Boycotting, Divesting & Sanctioning.

It took me a bit longer to realise I had to divest everything I had away from anything that was contributing to the entity of 'Israel', which is far reaching and affects not only Palestine.

From my money, to my energy, to my physical being: attempting to detach myself from this in all ways is a long journey.

Just like dismantling apartheid is a long process.

Liberation will come, but it won't happen overnight.

We can sprint from time to time, but this is a marathon.

At Well Teachers, one area that matters a lot to me is ensuring this space and all of our efforts, money earned and generated is ethical and aligned with worldwide efforts to adhere to principles of Boycotting, Divesting and Sanctioning (BDS).

Here are some ways we ensure Well Teachers is engaging in the BDS movement:

Purchases

Selecting and using tools, apps and software that is vetted, and avoiding any that are known to be contributing to or funding illegal settler-colonial entities.

For example:

Cancelling Wix and choosing to use another server. Reviewing the public announcements from companies before signing up to their services, like the Mighty Networks platform for The Well.

Money

This is about using and relying on funding generated through ethical means, and receiving support, input, and advisory services from those who are aligned with the principles of BDS.

For example:

All advisors and mentors involved with Well Teachers have declared their stance publicly or made it known clearly.

Declarations

Declaring Well Teachers as an apartheid free zone.

This is one of the recommended actions listed by the BDS movement, and this page serves as the official declaration for Well Teachers.

For example:

This web page and the notes on social media channels for Well Teachers state our stance.

Revenue

Ensuring revenue earned comes from individuals and organisations aligned with the philosophy and ethos of Well Teachers.

For example:

The founding members of The Well, a paid subscription service, are the foundational co-creators of the experiences and work we are doing at Well Teachers. This keeps both the finances and the energy clear and free to use in ways we all agree is helpful.

All we have is ourselves.

What is really disturbing for educators, is that we have, as yet, not seen any elite educational institution take a firm moral stance on the genocide and systemic racism taking place across the world and particularly in countries of the Global South.

Not only that, but even surface level research will show you how educational establishments are often complicit through their investments in weaponry and arms manufacturers. Everything is connected.

And as we see things continue as business as usual, we live in a time where the grossest breaches of international law are taking place over and over again in front of our eyes.

No one has been able to stop this.

And now, there are no schools left in Gaza.

“What happens to the children, happens to society”.

Being education professionals at this precise moment in time makes our impact and our ability to draw from our skills to create change profound and far-reaching.

For those who teach, what we do today will echo into the minds and actions of the next generation directly.

They will ask us what we did to stop this, and I know that I, and all the other teachers who are a part of Well Teachers already, want to be surrounded by those who have 'speak up spirit' and who want to look back and say: we 'did something'.

This means at Well Teachers we are joining up with those who aren't afraid to align with truth, freedom and fairness at one of the most critical moments in the history of humanity.

“What we do today, echoes in eternity.”

There is evidently something very wrong at the root of educational systems worldwide, which are well understood to be an instrument of power for controlling how a society functions and behaves. What we see transpire in society is rooted in education.

So shouldn't elite education surely be actively contributing to bringing an end to systems of oppression?

It appears they aren't. And it seems that educational systems, espeically international ones, are actively contributing towards bolstering systems that they should instead be actively finding ways to dismantle.

In sum: we're in the politics of care at Well Teachers.

We’re all about non-prescriptive, teacher led, community driven initiatives being the way forward to help make positive, lasting change.

Even if it is only by doing the most simple, loving of acts:

Caring.

There’s a quote that brings home why caring is so important around here, and why it’s a form of protest in and of itself:

"The most anti-capitalist protest is to care for another, and to care for yourself.

To take on the historically feminised therefore invisible practice of nursing, nurturing, and caring.

To take seriously each other's vulnerability, fragility, and precarity, and to support it, honor it, empower it, to protect each other, to enact and practice community.

A radical kinship, an interdependent sociality, a politics of care."

- Hedva