The Editor’s Post: Global leaders attend Pioneers Post mentees’ exhibition during UN General Assembly

David Lyons 26th September 2025

Young journalists trained by Pioneers Post showcase work in New York. This week’s view from the Pioneers Post newsroom.

“The first readers of my article were Micheál Martin, the prime minister [taoiseach] of Ireland, and Mr Gordon Brown, the former UK prime minister.”
As far as journalistic achievements go, that’s a real standout. Even more so for an aspiring journalist when the article in question is one of the first they’ve ever published.

But that’s exactly what Zhamana Hakim achieved this week. Zhamana, an Afghan refugee now based in the US, was in New York City at an exhibition launching The Education Issue, a new annual newspaper, which included her article on the challenges faced by refugees seeking to access education in the country they have resettled in.

The launch of The Education Issue marks the culmination of a five-month storytelling training programme, designed and delivered by the Pioneers Post team for 10 Global Youth Ambassadors – young people supported by international education charity Theirworld, including Zhamana.

Posting on Instagram from the exhibition, Zhamana said: “This isn’t my success, it’s for my Afghan sisters who are deprived of their rights and for refugee girls still denied education. May this moment amplify their voices and remind the world that education is a right, not a privilege.”

The Education Issue was produced by the Observer Studios, the content studio of the Observer newspaper, and guest-edited by the Observer’s managing editor, Jess Winch. To find out more about the launch and training programme, read my colleague Anna Patton’s article.

I was part of the Pioneers Post team who delivered the training programme, alongside my colleagues Anna and Julie Pybus, with the support of the Theirworld team and some amazing guest speakers. Unfortunately not all 10 of the young people we worked with were able to attend the launch — the group are based across the world, from Honduras to Bangladesh, and it was impossible to secure US visas for some of them.

But nonetheless, messages have been flying around the Pioneers Post Slack channels as we’ve seen social media posts from those who did make it enjoying their time in NYC, as well as the rest of the group’s excitement at seeing their work published. The final projects included in The Education Issue are impressive in and of themselves, but when put in the context of some of the hurdles they overcame to produce them, are even more so.

Attending the online workshops from multiple time zones, working in second (sometimes third) languages, internet outages and balancing this programme with other educational and work commitments were just some of the challenges the group faced during the training.

While reporting their final projects, members of the group dealt with extreme weather events, illness and tech malfunctions, not to mention showing great care and empathy while handling highly sensitive interviews.

I mentored João Davi de Morais Barbosa Saraiva, from Pirambu, Brazil, and Victory Ashaka, from Lagos, Nigeria, to produce their final projects. Both showed exceptional levels of commitment and aptitude for learning to make powerful short films about access to education in their communities. It was a pleasure to work with them and the rest of the group across the programme.

To enjoy Zhamana, João, Victory and the rest of the group’s work, head over to theeducationissue.org.