𝘽𝙮 𝙆.𝙆. 𝘽𝙤𝙣𝙩𝙚𝙝

I stand before you,
not as a solitary scribe scribbling on the blackboard of silence,
but as one voice in a choir of countless echoes,
a hand joined to many hands,
a candle whose flame, when shared,
sets a thousand lamps alight.

For teaching, today, is no longer a lone hut in the savannah,
but a village of wisdom,
where each elder leans on another elder,
and each storyteller passes the drumstick of knowledge
to the next waiting hand.

O teachers, sons and daughters of Africa,
children of the world,
you are not mere custodians of alphabets and numbers,
you are cultivators of futures,
planters of dreams in stubborn soil,
watering seeds with sweat and sleepless nights,
tending fragile hopes beneath the sun of adversity.

Yes,
the chalk is broken, the salaries meagre,
the roofs leak, the walls crack,
and still, you come, day after day,
with voices that rise above hunger,
with eyes that refuse to dim.
You carry the globe upon your shoulders
like an Atlas of compassion.

But hear me,
today, the call is not for solitary sacrifice,
but for fellowship!
For the weaving of mats strong enough
to carry the weight of generations.
For the joining of rivers into oceans
that quench the thirst of tomorrow.

Recasting teaching as a collaborative profession,
UNESCO sings it, the world affirms it:
that no teacher should walk alone,
that your strength lies in shared struggle,
your genius in borrowed light,
your fulfilment in the clasp of another teacher’s hand.

Imagine it,
a classroom where ideas fly like birds in migration,
crossing borders, nesting in new minds.
A staffroom where wisdom is traded
like kola nuts and palm wine,
where each contribution sweetens the common pot.

This is no longer an era of isolated warriors
writing battles on chalkboards,
this is an age of collective builders,
laying bricks of knowledge together,
singing the same anthem of hope:
𝑻𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒓𝒚 𝒄𝒉𝒊𝒍𝒅, 𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒓𝒚 𝒄𝒐𝒏𝒕𝒊𝒏𝒆𝒏𝒕, 𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒓𝒚 𝒅𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒎

𝒔𝒉𝒂𝒍𝒍 𝒇𝒊𝒏𝒅 𝒊𝒕𝒔 𝒘𝒊𝒏𝒈𝒔.

So rise, O teachers,
torchbearers, bridge-makers, guardians of tomorrow.
Lift your heads high,
not for what the world pays you,
but for what the world owes you:
its conscience, its progress, its soul.

For when you teach together,
you do not merely instruct,
you transform.
You do not simply inform,
you inspire.
You do not only guide,
you glorify the very act of being human.

Let the drums sound from Yaoundé to Cairo,
from Nairobi to Lagos,
from Cape Town to Accra,
let it echo across the earth:

𝑻𝒆𝒂𝒄𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒊𝒔 𝒏𝒐 𝒍𝒐𝒏𝒈𝒆𝒓 𝒂 𝒍𝒐𝒏𝒆𝒍𝒚 𝒔𝒐𝒏𝒈,

𝒃𝒖𝒕 𝒂 𝒄𝒉𝒐𝒓𝒖𝒔,

𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒘𝒐𝒓𝒍𝒅 𝒔𝒉𝒂𝒍𝒍 𝒏𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒓 𝒇𝒐𝒓𝒈𝒆𝒕

𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒎𝒖𝒔𝒊𝒄 𝒐𝒇 𝒊𝒕𝒔 𝒕𝒆𝒂𝒄𝒉𝒆𝒓𝒔.