# Paulo Freire Annual Lecture

**Source**: https://www.lborolondon.ac.uk/about/institutes/creative-futures/paulo-freire-lecture/
**Parent**: https://www.lborolondon.ac.uk/about/institutes/creative-futures/

Launched in 2022, **the Paulo Freire Annual Lecture** is organised each Autumn by **the Institute for Creative Futures** to coincide with Freire’s birthday. The event features a leading thinker or activist whose work embodies the Freirean principles of social justice, critical pedagogy, and democratic transformation.

Paulo Freire (1921–1997) was one of the 20th century’s most influential thinkers on education, justice, and social change. While best known for [Pedagogy of the Oppressed,](https://vufind.lboro.ac.uk/Record/539192?sid=124158723) his impact reaches far beyond the classroom and into movements for democracy, human rights, and emancipatory knowledge. In 2021, a series of seven talks organised by the Institute to celebrate Freire’s birth centenary gathered more than 800 participants from more than 40 countries.

If you wish to find out more about past talks, head to the [repository page.](https://repository.lboro.ac.uk/projects/Paulo_Freire_Centennial_7_Talks_in_Preparation_for_the_Next_100_Years/111428)

The Paulo Freire Annual Lecture reaffirms Loughborough University London’s deep interest in exploring social change-oriented movements and citizen-driven initiatives that align with Freirean ideas and are equally engaged with principles and practices such as dialogic communication, liberating pedagogy, social justice. The University continues to conduct research that is heavily informed by such ideas and engages with practitioners and academics from across the globe in investigating Freirean ideas in the context of the 21st century.

## About past and future events

### 2022

The inaugural lecture was given by Professor Boaventura de Sousa Santos, Emeritus Professor of Sociology at the University of Coimbra, who reflected on Freire’s global influence across disciplines and movements. His talk included a special introductory message from Nita Freire, Paulo Freire’s widow.

You can watch this talk on our [YouTube page.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7OFl3pr5CM)

### 2023

In September 2023, Loughborough University London hosted the second Paulo Freire Annual Lecture, delivered by Anita Gurumurthy, Executive Director of IT for Change. Her thought-provoking lecture, titled “Conscientization in Times of Cognitive Injustice,” explored how Paulo Freire’s ideas of critical consciousness and liberation remain urgently relevant in an era shaped by artificial intelligence and digital capitalism.

### 2024

The 3rd Paulo Freire Annual Lecture was delivered by Amparo Cadavid in November 2024. She highlighted Freire’s influence on the thinking and action of generations of professionals, activists, managers, producers and academics who have set out to transform their work from the ground up. Drawing on the Colombian case, Cadavid described Freire's contributions towards development, transformation, reconciliation and social change, especially in difficult contexts where poverty, armed conflict and other complex social dynamics prevail.

### 2025

José María Gualinga, a leader of the Kichwa Indigenous People of Sarayaku, will deliver the 4th Paulo Freire Annual Lecture in October 2025. He will introduce us to the Kawsak Sacha philosophy and the normative declaration it informs. Kawsak Sacha (Living Jungle) is a philosophy of life and a way of living with the Pachamama that is born from the ancient wisdom of the Original Peoples who live in the Amazon Jungle.

## Featured Publications

The Institute’s work has contributed to a rich body of international scholarship on Freire, including:

- [Freire and the Perseverance of Hope (Institute of Network Cultures, 2022)](https://repository.lboro.ac.uk/articles/book/Freire_and_the_perseverance_of_hope_exploring_communication_and_social_change/20049563 )
- [Esperançar com Paulo Freire: reflexões sobre comunicação e mudança social (Instituto Ubiqua, 2023)](https://repository.lboro.ac.uk/articles/book/Esperan_ar_com_Paulo_Freire_reflex_es_sobre_comunica_o_e_mudan_a_social/25298980?file=44714827 )

### Special Issues on Freire in:

- [International Communication Gazette (2020)](https://journals.sagepub.com/toc/gazb/82/5 )
- [Commons. Revista de Comunicación y Ciudadanía Digital (2020)](https://revistas.uca.es/index.php/cayp/issue/view/432 )
- [Matrizes (2021)](https://revistas.usp.br/matrizes/issue/view/12179 )
- [Punto de Encuentro (2021)](https://signisalc.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Revista-Punto-de-Encuentro-Dic-2021.pdf )