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Celebrating stories of leadership, innovation, & lifelong learning.

Read the Stories

About Principals Speak

Principals Speak, developed by GSL, is a digital storytelling platform to amplify the voices of school leaders across the Global South. It enables them to share their real-world challenges, promising practices, and engage with the experiences of a global education community. Available in five languages, the platform ensures that school leaders can share their stories and connect with others in the language that feels most comfortable to them.

Principals Speak also offers a unique window into school leaders’ realities for education organizations, policymakers, and funders seeking to better understand how policies translate into practice and what support school leaders truly need to succeed. It provides grounded, localized insights that can inform programs, improve policy design, and help build stronger, student-centered education systems.

Partnering with UNESCO GEM

Global School Leaders is partnering with the UNESCO Global Education Monitoring (GEM) Report to bring the perspectives of school leaders into global conversations on education. Through this collaboration, stories and insights from Principals Speak will contribute to a deeper understanding of how leadership shapes teaching, learning, and equity in diverse contexts. Together, we aim to strengthen the visibility of school leaders’ experiences and support the development of more responsive, effective, and student-centered education systems.

Winning Stories 2025

Helping Hands

Mabel Elizabeth Valdez Meira

Set in an early childhood school serving low-income families in Tucumán, Helping Hands shows how literacy, numeracy, and civic values can grow together through community-driven learning. By combining classroom instruction with a school garden, student-created media, and partnerships with families and local institutions, the project turns reading, writing, and numeracy into tools for real-world engagement. The story highlights how solidarity, environmental awareness, and inclusive practices can strengthen foundational learning while deepening family and community involvement.

Read the Story

A community-driven early childhood project that blends literacy, numeracy, and civic values. Through a school garden, student-created media, and family partnerships, learning becomes practical, inclusive, and deeply connected to everyday life.