By Sharon Booth, Solutions Not Sides Founder & Executive Director.

Sharon reflects on what we've learnt after 100 tours in schools and communities.

The best education is when students are exposed to diverse viewpoints, critical-thinking skills, and are allowed space to think for themselves and come to their own conclusions. After 100 school tours across nearly 15 years, we have seen how powerful this can be.

By Ali Amla, SNS' Youth & Partnerships Director

One of the best ways to persuade others is with your ears, by listening to them - to connect at a human level, to humanise each other, to listen in order to understand and not to simply respond. To hold space before introducing your thoughts and opinions. Not to debate or to change one another's views but to genuinely grapple with them. The skills required to do this are in greater demand than ever before.

Solutions Not Sides: Setting the record straight

SNS has been made aware of disinformation campaigns related to its Youth Education Programme. 

Interfaith week is designed to strengthen interfaith relations and understanding, however it is currently in crisis with many asking what’s the point? The last two months have been an incredibly challenging time for interfaith, hopelessly and helplessly watching the rapidly rising number of those killed daily.  With many grieving, upset, angry and fearful, empathy for how the perceived ‘other’ is feeling is difficult during this painful period, which is exacerbated by the exponential increase in antisemitism and Islamophobia.

My school - a large Grammar School in the North of England - has been working with Solutions Not Sides (SNS) since 2016. The mission statement of the organisation encapsulates the reasons why my school signed up with SNS: