By Heather Blicher, CCCOER Director, Open Education Global
In February 2025, the Community College Consortium for OER (CCCOER), the North American node of Open Education Global, in collaboration with the European Network of Open Education Librarians (ENOEL), a part of SPARC Europe, hosted a webinar that felt different from the start. Rather than a distant account, it offered an unfiltered perspective of an educator living through the realities of war. Resilience and Open Education: Supporting Ukrainian Librarians During Wartime gave us the opportunity to hear directly what that experience looked like beyond the narratives we often see in mainstream media.
Centered on the experiences of Dr. Tetiana Kolesnykova of the Ukrainian State University of Science and Technologies, and made accessible through live translation by Mira Buist-Zhuk of the University of Delft, a Ukrainian now living and working in the Netherlands, the session created space for something deeply human – storytelling, listening, and connection across borders during a time of crisis.
But what has become increasingly clear over the past year is this: that webinar was not a one-time event. It was a beginning.
The Power of One Story
For myself and Paola Corti of SPARC Europe and Politecnico di Milano, the original intention was simple, but meaningful: to create a platform for Ukrainian librarians to share their experiences navigating war while continuing to support their communities through Open Education.
It also came from something more personal. In moments like these, when so much feels out of our control, I find myself asking what it means to show up in ways that matter. For me, sometimes that looks like participating in protests here in the U.S. Other times, it looks like creating space, listening, and helping others be heard. Even when those actions feel small, in their own way, they are a form of resistance. A way of not standing still.
Participants didn’t just listen. They responded. They asked questions, shared ideas, and reflected on how they might offer support. The session surfaced something we often talk about in Open Education, but don’t always fully realize: that openness is not just about resources. It’s about relationships.
And in some cases, that response moved beyond the session itself. It led to follow-up conversations and new partnerships, including discussions with colleagues at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology OpenCourseWare about how they might support Tetiana, her colleagues, and others in Ukraine and their work. There is more to share about this, but for now, it’s one example of how a single story can open unexpected doors.
What Happens Behind the Scenes
Following the webinar, collaboration deepened between CCCOER and SPARC Europe.
Together, we began asking:
- How do we make sure these stories continue to be heard?
- How do we move from providing a platform to facilitating support?
- Do we even have the capacity to facilitate support?
- What does it look like to build networks of care across organizations and regions?
This work became the foundation for a workshop presented at the Association for Learning Technology’s OER25 Conference in June 2025: Stories of Resistance: Uniting Open Practitioners in Times of Crisis and an adapted version for the Open Education Conference in October 2025.
Rather than focusing solely on the story, we shared the process. This included logistical challenges, coordination across time zones and languages, and the effort required to center voices from crisis-affected regions in meaningful and respectful ways. As my colleague Paola is quick to point out, these educators do not want pity – they want action.
At the heart of our work was (and is) a core belief: Open Education, in times like these, is an act of resistance or resilience- however you choose to see it.
Storytelling as Strategy
Through both the webinar and subsequent presentations, one idea has continued to resonate:
Storytelling is not just reflective – it is strategic by:
- Preserving and sharing knowledge
- Amplifying voices that might otherwise go unheard
- Creating pathways for connection and global efforts for solidarity
They also invite participation. In our sessions, participants contributed their own experiences, challenges, and ideas. Together, we began to imagine what a more connected, responsive global Open Education community could look like.
What’s Emerging Now
What started with one story is beginning to open into many.
In recent months, these conversations have led to new connections across different regions and contexts, each shaped by its own challenges, priorities, and possibilities. Some are just beginning. Others are still taking form, and all are grounded in listening first.
In a few cases, this has meant connecting with educators, librarians, and others involved in Open working in regions experiencing ongoing conflict, war, and other challenges. In others, it’s meant looking more closely to home. For me, that is the communities in the U.S. navigating disruption, uncertainty, and violence due to the current administration’s approach to policy, governance, and public discourse.
Each conversation with a new connection brings something different. New perspectives, new questions, and often a reminder that there is no single way to do this work.
Over time, a shared understanding has taken shape: This work grows through relationships, through trust, and through attention to local context.
Toward a Series: Open as Resilience
What’s becoming clear is that this concept is continuing to unfold.
What began as a single webinar is slowly taking shape as a series. Conversations, collaborations, and stories that build on one another, even when they are happening in very different contexts.
I’ve been using the phrase Open as Resilience to describe this work. At times, I find myself wanting to call it “resistance.” But I pause.
Not because “resistance” is not relevant to the idea, and in fact I have the urge to shout, “resistance!” in every way I can and in all of the channels I have access to. But because words carry weight, and in some contexts, they can carry risk for the speaker(s), I check myself – maybe one day. When individuals and communities doing the work of continuing on, supporting one another, and showing up in ways that matter, that is resilience. And for now at least, it is a much safer word to describe our efforts.
This next phase isn’t fully defined. What we do know is that we want to:
- Keep centering voices from communities navigating challenges and/or crisis
- Build networks of care
- Create space for storytelling as both reflection and action
- And continue exploring what it means for Open Education to serve as a public good in complex times
More will come. For now, we’re listening, learning, and following where these connections lead.
An Invitation
This work is ongoing. Our inboxes will remain open, and conversations move forward. We are continuing to build relationships and to ask what meaningful support looks like. We are also exploring how to create more structured ways for others to engage, whether through future webinars, collaborative spaces, or shared storytelling.
If this resonates with you, we invite you to be part of the conversation. Because if there’s one thing this work has shown us, it’s this:
Open Education is more than access and affordability. It is about solidarity.