An icy wind whips the platform at Kherson station as Nadiia Kostyliova and her 11-year-old son, Sasha, make their way to their carriage. She carries most of their heavy bags, including his Paw Patrol backpack. He insists on keeping one, though, because he wants to show her he is a man.

They board and find their compartment: two bunks, no door. Next door is another family, whose baby begins to cry. Ms. Kostyliova sits next to her son and looks out the window. Sasha watches his mother.

The train, heading for western Ukraine, leaves in about four hours. It’s the first time Ms. Kostyliova has ever left the area around Kherson, and she doesn’t want to go.

“I’ve never been so far in my life,” she says. “So I’m scared.”

Ms. Kostyliova is one of thousands of residents for whom Kherson can no longer be home, though. The city has been in Ukrainian hands since Kyiv’s troops recaptured it from the Russians last month. But Kherson and its surrounding villages have come under heavy artillery fire, and living conditions have deteriorated as Russian strikes knock out electricity and water supplies.

Her own home has been spared, but her neighborhood has been damaged and her son has grown petrified of incoming artillery. It is “no longer possible to stay,” she says.

Still, it took her weeks to decide to evacuate her hometown, before her sister, who moved to western Ukraine before the invasion, finally convinced her to leave. Ms. Kostyliova knows only that she and her son will stay with her sister; she doesn’t know how big her apartment is, or where Sasha will go to school, or where – or whether – she will find a job.

Voluntary evacuation – for now

In late November, Ukraine’s government began a voluntary evacuation of Kherson, just weeks after it was liberated. Around 200 people leave by train or bus each day, volunteers say, and more go by car.

For the tens of thousands of Ukrainians who survived nine months of occupation, evacuating the city is one of the war’s great cruelties. “They’re leaving just because of necessity,” says Natalia Yefymeko, a volunteer helping evacuate people at the train station. “There are bombardments every day.”

Between the yellow columns in the station’s main hall, about 100 evacuees form a line. They carry pets, children, toys, coats, and always heavy bags, as Ms. Yefymeko guides them through the process. “Someone has to do this, and it’s distracting me from the fear I feel when I’m just sitting at home,” she says. Her district regularly comes under artillery fire, but she and her husband are staying to look after their parents, who refuse to leave.

Noah Robertson/The Christian Science Monitor

About 120 people evacuate Kherson through the train station each day, says Natalia Yefymeko, a volunteer who helps guide them through the process, Dec. 3, 2022. Ms. Yefymeko, whose neighborhood is shelled almost daily, has told her parents that if the situation gets much worse, they will all have to evacuate by car.

The people in line have either bought their own tickets or registered with the government in Kyiv to receive a free seat. One by one they are shown into a large glass room where Ukrainian soldiers and police, on the lookout for Russian collaborators, check their papers, take their photos, and ask how they spent the occupation.

The process takes about five minutes. The train, some of its carriages decorated with bright murals to identify them as free for evacuees, is waiting. 

Since liberation, at least 3,000 people have left Kherson according to the official count, says Oleksandr Tolokinnikov, chief spokesperson for the Kherson Regional Military Administration. Many others leave without informing the authorities. Tens of thousands fled the city while it was under Russian occupation: Its population has dropped from 300,000 before the war to 70,000-80,000 today, Mr. Tolokinnikov says.

Although the evacuation is voluntary now, he says, it could become mandatory were the temperature to dip permanently below freezing before Ukrainians can repair water pipes and other infrastructure. People would be required to leave or sign a form explicitly consenting to remain.

For the time being, says Ms. Yefymeko, “most people, even despite the bombings and the lack of electricity, are just deciding to stay.”

A handful of stones

Some of Kherson’s residents, however, don’t feel as if they have a choice. Tetiana Dzykan is one of them. An exploding shell blew out all the windows of her apartment in early December, and her home has no heat, electricity, or water. “I was keeping with it until the very end,” says Ms. Dzykan, “but I’m worried.”

So, at a registration center housed in a gray tent not far from the station, she has, reluctantly, signed up to leave with her son. Her husband is staying to care for his mother. Ms. Dzykan will join relatives in Odesa.

It was a difficult choice. Under Russian occupation, Kherson’s residents had been “going through such hard times that when the Russians left, they started to breathe more easily,” says a volunteer helping evacuees in the registration tent. “People are happy that there is Ukraine here now, and they don’t want to leave.”

Noah Robertson/The Christian Science Monitor

Tetiana Dzykan, who had just registered to evacuate from her hometown, in Kherson's city center, Dec. 3, 2022. She and her son are going to live with family in Odesa, but her husband is staying to look after his mother.

But some, like Ms. Dzykan, feel they must do so. Registration is open to would-be evacuees from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. each day. They are often in tears, the volunteer says, explaining why they are going as though they need an excuse. “They all say that they are leaving for a short time,” she says. “They are just waiting until the Russians are pushed further back,” out of artillery range.

That is Ms. Kostyliova’s plan, at any rate. She will wait in western Ukraine for the government to say it’s safe to return. Her mother, meanwhile, will watch their home. Though nervous, Ms. Kostyliova says she feels better about going now that her city has been liberated.

She and her son have packed only what is necessary; her sister says there won’t be much space for bags. Her nephews and nieces, though, who like to fish, did ask her for one thing. So just before leaving, she walked down to the estuary of the Dnieper River, and gathered a handful of stones. They are her only memento of home.

Oleksandr Naselenko supported the reporting of this article.

Jose Luis Gonzalez/Reuters

Venezuelan migrants, some expelled from the U.S. to Mexico under Title 42 and others who have not yet crossed after the new immigration policies, stand at a camp on the banks of the Rio Bravo in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, Nov. 21, 2022.

Venezuelans are living through simultaneous economic, humanitarian, and political crises that have become more acute over the past decade. Thousands have been detained as political prisoners in this time period, with a recent United Nations report declaring that repression of dissent is well orchestrated and frequently relies on torture. Millions of Venezuelans have fled to neighboring countries in the past seven years, and they are increasingly taking the risky journey to arrive at the U.S. border in search of protection. Why, then, is there a sudden sense of hope among the international community for Venezuela’s future?

We’ve been hearing about Venezuela’s woes for a long time. Is it worse now?

Yes. For more than a decade, Venezuela’s economy has been stuck in a tailspin, with sky-high inflation and shortages of food, medical products, and basic resources like water getting worse and keeping millions from meeting their basic needs. And the outward migration – some 7.1 million Venezuelan refugees and migrants reside outside the country, according to government statistics – makes this the second-largest external displacement crisis in the world.

Political chaos has defined the past five years in Venezuela. Disputed President Nicolás Maduro, the handpicked successor of the late former President Hugo Chávez, narrowly won election in 2013. He was at the helm during the height of the nation’s economic breakdown and has faced numerous, sometimes violent, public protests. His 2018 reelection was widely considered fraudulent, and in 2019, opposition leader Juan Guaidó led an uprising, claiming himself the interim president on the grounds that the 2018 vote was rigged. International governments, including the United States and dozens of others, recognized his presidency at the time. But little changed, and scores of politicians and others seen as threats to Mr. Maduro’s government have since been imprisoned or put under house arrest.

The opposition is split over how to face down political repression, which is a chronic challenge, according to the U.N. report published this fall. It documented human rights abuses including torture and sexual violence against journalists, nongovernmental organization workers, opposition politicians, and even children.

Wait, I’m having trouble seeing the hope. Where is it again?

Negotiations were held Nov. 26, and they are seen as a potential breakthrough for the deeply divided country. They mark the first formal talks between Mr. Maduro’s government and the opposition in more than a year. Both sides agreed to create a humanitarian fund made up of some $3 billion of Venezuelan assets previously frozen by U.S. financial sanctions. The details of the relief fund are expected in the coming weeks, and it is to be administered by the U.N., prioritizing addressing malnutrition and investment in health care and infrastructure. Negotiators agreed to continue talks this month and to discuss a timetable for presidential elections in 2024.

The U.S. government responded by easing years-old sanctions to allow Chevron Corp. to resume joint oil operations in Venezuela. The Biden administration says it will continue to assess whether Mr. Maduro’s government is meeting the commitments of the preliminary accord. According to the plan, the proceeds of oil sales will not go into governmental pockets but instead toward paying off Venezuelan creditors in the U.S.

Marcelo Ebrard, the foreign minister of Mexico, which hosted the November talks, said the preliminary agreement represents “hope for all of Latin America.” Foreign newspapers ran hopeful headlines like “Setting a different course” and “Breakthrough in Venezuela.”

“There are reasons to think this is different. This is the most robust negotiation process in Venezuelan history,” says Geoff Ramsey, the Venezuela director at the Washington Office on Latin America, a research and advocacy organization. “Maduro is facing cold, hard incentives leading him back to the negotiation table,” including international isolation and “a major” cash flow problem. “It’s not a matter of waiting for the regime to negotiate in good faith – it’s a matter of incentives,” which include sanctions relief, Dr. Ramsey says.

It took back channel work by foreign governments, primarily Norway, to reignite talks. But the return of these opposing factions wasn’t about them suddenly seeing eye to eye or trusting one another, says Michael Penfold, a political science professor at the Institute of Advanced Studies of Administration in Venezuela. He credits the U.S. changing its approach. “For the first time, they’re using sanctions more as incentives, rather than perpetual punishment,” he says.

The U.S. has had some form of sanctions slapped on Venezuela for the past 15 years, targeting everything from individuals to government officials to the state-run oil company, Petróleos de Venezuela. Venezuela has the world’s largest oil reserves, which it’s been largely unable to capitalize on due to American sanctions.

But, Dr. Penfold questions whether the leverage of sanctions will be enough to keep Chavistas at the table. “They care about sanctions, they do care,” he says of Mr. Maduro’s government. “But they care about power, too.”

So how can we trust that things will improve while Mr. Maduro still holds the power? 

Despite some international optimism, many in fact remain skeptical about these negotiations. The Maduro government, says Dr. Penfold, has proved its ability to effectively shore up power – and break down any semblance of unity among the opposition – over the past several years. The Venezuelan population has suffered, but the government has maintained power.

A pillar of last month’s talks was the need to organize elections in 2024. The government has banned or arrested opposition candidates in the lead-up to past votes, which means they are choosing the type of candidate they want to run against, says Dr. Penfold. They might not be stuffing ballot boxes, he says, but they are manipulating the electoral process.

The international community has a role in keeping the integrity of the negotiations intact. Faulting the Chevron decision, Brian Winter, editor-in-chief of America’s Quarterly, in a Dec. 1 tweet likened the country to “the new Saudi Arabia – a loathsome dictatorship with which the US has decided to do business in name of oil, post-Ukraine.”

The reactivation of the talks aren’t a “blank check for the regime,” says Dr. Ramsey. “The international community needs to keep a close eye on the implementation of the agreement,” he says, but key to success will be broadening who is actually at the negotiating table.

“So far this process has been led by political actors, but there’s a huge need to engage with the broader Venezuelan society,” he says. Without including the voices and perspectives of civil society or the victims of violence or human rights violations, the negotiations are “unlikely to succeed.”

Nancy Walser/The Hechinger Report

High school junior Jason Summers (left) meets with pod leader Will Navarro in Central Falls, Rhode Island, in October 2022. In a handful of school districts around the country, administrators are repurposing learning pods for students who fell behind academically during the pandemic.

With grape juice and Chex Mix at hand, and their little sister busy coloring nearby, Jenashia and Nevaeh Aponte settle down at a table with Sara Rubio, their “pod leader.”

It is late afternoon and the first floor of the McKenna Center – a renovated Victorian house located across the street from Central Falls High School in Rhode Island – is abuzz with teenagers chatting and catching up. But the sisters’ attention is squarely on Ms. Rubio: There are only four days left before teachers begin finalizing first-quarter grades, and the girls need her help.

Jenashia, a sophomore, pulls out a folder with her biology project, while her sister Nevaeh, a freshman, checks her grades online. Due to an illness in the family, she has missed the deadline to take her Algebra I portfolio exam. Her math teacher has just informed her that she will have to wait and take it next year.

“What’s his name?” asks Ms. Rubio. “Text me the dates you were out.”

Ms. Rubio, a junior at the University of Rhode Island who attended elementary school in Central Falls, has already intervened once this quarter. She’d noticed that Nevaeh was missing a grade in her online grade book for a major science project that the teen said she had completed. At Ms. Rubio’s urging, Nevaeh went to her teacher and they unraveled the mystery: She actually had turned in the assignment but had forgotten to write her name on it.

“She almost failed accidentally,” says Ms. Rubio.

Emerging at the height of the pandemic, pods (or “hubs” as they are sometimes called) were organized primarily by middle-class, college-educated parents and community groups to provide safe, supportive spaces for virtual learning. When education went online, pods took off – and then disappeared quickly as school buildings reopened around the country. Now, with federal stimulus dollars flowing and pressure building to accelerate student learning post-pandemic, some public school districts like Central Falls are trying new ways of pairing small groups of students with supportive adults. 

While the number of districts currently operating pods or hubs is unknown, the Center on Reinventing Public Education, a nonprofit, created a database to track more than 300 pods in early 2021, finding that about 7% of the programs in this sample were run by districts. More recently, the data tracking firm Burbio identified 36 districts that are using pandemic relief funds to start hubs or hublike learning centers. 

Nancy Walser/The Hechinger Report

Pod leaders Gus Rodriguez (left) and Will Navarro (center) meet with students in the living room of the McKenna Center in Central Falls, Rhode Island, in October 2022. Students are encouraged to set goals and advocate for changes that will help them attain them.

One of the largest programs is in Guilford County, North Carolina. After school, staff and tutors work individually and in small groups of six or seven with teens deemed most at risk for not graduating. The hubs operate in all of the district’s 15 comprehensive high schools and serve 600 to 900 students weekly. Edgecombe County, also in North Carolina, uses pods to prepare 3-year-olds for kindergarten, and to work on projects that interest older students. 

One of the more controversial efforts is unfolding in New Hampshire, where education officials set aside $6 million in federal stimulus funds to encourage the formation of both district-run and “community” pods as an alternative to traditional classrooms at the elementary level. The state has contracted with Prenda, an online education provider, to hire “guides” to supervise multiage pods of five to 10 children. While no district pods have opened yet, 35 community pods, serving about 200 students, are operating in family homes and other settings, according to New Hampshire Education Commissioner Frank Edelblut. 

“We have got to at least try”

In Rhode Island, the pod program in Central Falls is among the country’s smallest but most ambitious. Launched in March 2021, it was envisioned as a way not only to help kids catch up academically, but also to create new job opportunities for residents of this largely immigrant, Hispanic community, and perhaps even inspire some to pursue teaching careers. Ten pod leaders serve five high schoolers each, meeting individually and as a group every week after school.

In addition to keeping tabs on homework and grades, pod leaders teach students how to manage their time, apply for summer jobs, and create goals for life after high school. They plan pizza parties, trips to museums, and visits to nearby places the students have never seen, like the seaside city of Newport. The program is expanding this year to include middle schoolers. A federal after-school grant worth $170,000 annually will help fund the program over the next five years.  

A tiny city of just over 22,000, Central Falls was no stranger to hard times even before the pandemic. Thirty years ago, facing shortfalls and a limited tax base to fund its schools, city leaders handed financial control of the district over to the state. In 2010, Central Falls made national news again when the entire staff of the city’s only high school was fired as part of a “turnaround” effort to raise its perennially low test scores. A year later, the city filed for bankruptcy.

When schools shifted to remote learning in 2020, Superintendent Stephanie Downey Toledo watched another crisis unfolding. By Thanksgiving, nearly half of the city’s 800 high school students were failing two or more classes. Seventy-four students were failing five. More than half of the freshman class was chronically absent.

Nancy Walser/The Hechinger Report

The McKenna Center in Central Falls, Rhode Island, functions as a home for pods for high schoolers in the city's district, but pod leaders and students have the flexibility to decide where and when to meet to accommodate students’ schedules.

Meanwhile, from her home nearby in the Boston suburb of Sharon, Massachusetts, Dr. Toledo, a mother of four, was fielding invitations to join private learning pods being organized by parents. “I mean, people were willing to cover the full salary of a teacher, and I just kept thinking, this would never be an option for the kids who I lead on behalf of,” she recalls. 

So, in late 2020, when Shawn Rubin of the Highlander Institute, a professional development nonprofit, approached her about applying for a grant to set up pods in the district, she thought, “We have got to at least try.”

From the beginning, Mr. Rubin and Dr. Toledo, along with their partner, the local nonprofit Freedom Dreams, agreed that the program would have a communitywide impact in this town, where the median household income was just $34,689 in 2020. Training was designed to provide pod leaders with activities they could use with students. Staff tapped into their networks to recruit the leaders, and reached out to students who might benefit, as well as to their parents. They started by inviting ninth graders deemed most “disengaged.”

Pod leaders, who are paid $20 an hour for 15 hours of work a week, must have a high school diploma or a GED diploma, some connection to the city, and be willing to attend weekly training sessions. Their most important role may be the consistent presence they provide, sometimes checking in with students daily by text, phone, video, or email, those involved in the program say.

Many of their students juggle jobs and babysitting duties for siblings. Some have chronic health conditions affecting their attendance, or struggle with lack of confidence, family conflicts, or trauma from losing loved ones. Pod leaders work to draw them out of their shell and get them involved in extracurricular activities that excite them and keep them going to school. The pod program is an “extra layer of support” for teachers who don’t have as much time to make deep connections with students, says Lesdin Salazar, the district’s director of equity implementation.

Pod leaders, whose backgrounds are often similar to those of their students, try to convey lessons they had to learn the hard way. Ms. Rubio’s parents came to the United States from Colombia. Because they didn’t speak English, they couldn’t help her with schoolwork. “I did all my work alone as a kid,” she says. “I had to figure it out on my own.”  

Like other pod leaders, she worries the pandemic deepened her students’ feelings of isolation. She shares tips with the teens she works with on how they can communicate more effectively with peers and teachers and overcome the fear of looking “stupid” to ask for help when they need it. She plans to stick with her “beautiful” kids and see them through graduation. 

“They’ve been through a lot,” she says. “They need a mentor.”

Will Navarro, one of the first pod leaders hired, grew up next door to the high school. He dropped out his senior year when he realized he was failing English and would not meet graduation requirements. Later, he earned a GED diploma. His mother, a single parent who worked double shifts in a factory when he was growing up, instilled in him a work ethic that he tries to encourage in his students.

Nancy Walser/The Hechinger Report

As director of equity implementation for the Central Falls district, Lesdin Salazar is one of several staffers helping to expand the pod program over the next five years. The pod program is an “extra layer of support” for teachers who don’t have as much time to make deep connections with students, she says.

One of those students is Jason Summers. Mr. Navarro began working with Jason in May 2021. A ninth grader at the time, Jason was behind in all his classes. Over a span of three weeks, Mr. Navarro helped Jason get his grades up to at least 50% so he would qualify for summer school and not have to repeat courses the following year.

Now in 11th grade, Jason is on track to graduate. Still, sitting beside Mr. Navarro in the McKenna Center on a recent day, Jason admits to struggling with motivation. “Things have been rocky in school for me because I’ve just gotten lazy,” he says.

But, without the pods, Jason guesses he would still be a freshman or sophomore.

The pods have made a believer out of Denise Debarros, who has worked in the district for more than 20 years. In the past, she tried to connect homeless students to a tutoring program run by a local social services agency to help them boost their grades. But students wouldn’t go. She begged and cajoled, to no avail.

But the pods are different. “I saw them coming here,” she says of the students. “They like coming; I’m sold.”  

For the most part, pod leaders are sticking around, too. Two have been promoted to full-time jobs within the school district.

But the pods are a work in progress. Robert McCarthy, principal at Central Falls High School, says he supports the program. But he had three veteran teachers leave over the summer, and with a number of vacant positions, he worries that the program is sometimes adding to, rather than reducing, teachers’ workloads.

“If teachers are getting messages from five or six different people who aren’t the parents, it becomes overwhelming,” he says.

Looking to the future

Whether pods are here to stay is an open question. David Dockterman, a lecturer at the Harvard Graduate School of Education who has studied past efforts to tailor learning to students’ individual needs, says the pods “seem like a good idea” as long they don’t marginalize students, and help accelerate learning.  

Ultimately the future of pods may depend on whether they can be linked to improved test scores, he says, adding, “That’s where the pressure is.”

Proponents of pods are encouraged by student survey results and other data to date. Kathryn Rose, a registered nurse who runs two community pods out of her home in Goffstown, New Hampshire, says pods are a much-needed alternative for students who aren’t succeeding in traditional classrooms, including students who suffer extreme anxiety or have disabilities such as autism.

These students are “thriving” in a small, home school setting where they can take breaks when they want and pursue other interests like foreign languages and coding, she says. Last year, all her students either met or exceeded the typical annual growth on the iReady tests in math and English language arts, she says. 

In Guilford County Schools, a district in North Carolina, data shows that students who attend the high school hubs after school have higher graduation rates than those who do not, says Superintendent Whitney Oakley. At a cost of $240 per student per year, the hubs are “absolutely worth every single penny,” she says. 

“People talk all the time about not going back to the system that didn’t work for all kids,” she says. “I think this model brings hope.”

Dr. Toledo, the Central Falls superintendent, says she’s “so pleased” with the results of the pod program she’s seen so far. Recent data shows a steady decline in absences for students in pods and growth in reading assessment scores compared to peers who are not in pods, she says.

In addition, she’s also heard from families who “see a difference in their kids’ interest in being in school,” she says. “That’s huge to get those thank-yous from families saying, ‘Thanks for thinking outside of the box, because traditional school was not alone going to be the path for my child.’” 

Editor’s note: This article has been updated to include the involvement of an additional nonprofit, Freedom Dreams. 

This story about learning pods was supported by a reporting fellowship from the Education Writers Association and produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. 

Loreena McKennitt’s new live album is a homecoming.

The Canadian songwriter and harp player usually travels to far-flung locations – Spain, Morocco, Turkey – to find inspiration for her “eclectic Celtic” music. She’s sold 14 million albums that are rooted in Irish traditions but also include influences spanning from southern Europe to the Far East. 

But in the wake of the pandemic, she yearned to create a Christmas show reminiscent of community concerts from her childhood. “Under a Winter’s Moon,” recorded in December 2021 at Knox Presbyterian Church in Stratford, Ontario, is musically adventurous yet highly accessible. The concert consists of Celtic Christmas carols and seasonal readings. It’s a communal celebration of values that are sometimes neglected in the bustle of the digital age.  

“Gratitude is such an important concept, and I wonder if I consider it enough,” says Ms. McKennitt during a Zoom call. “Also, there’s a lot to learn from the divinity of nature and the endless cycle of life and how the Christ story sits within that. And those sentiments of love and peace and hope and rebirth are so important.”

“Broad ways of thinking”

The recordings for her latest album feature a five-piece band. During “The Holly and the Ivy” and “Good King Wenceslas,” an ebullient combination of Irish whistle, cello, fiddle, and bouzouki makes the more than 100-year-old Knox church sound as lively as a banquet hall. Ms. McKennitt’s shimmering soprano utilizes the natural reverb of the vaulted ceilings on celestial pieces such as “The Wexford Carol” and “Balulalow.” “God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen” incorporates Middle Eastern modalities and rhythms.  

“She’s been able to take the traditions that are obviously rooted in the Celtic tradition ... but just expanded it to such broad ways of thinking,” says Canadian recording artist Sammy Duke in a Zoom call. The songwriter, who discovered Ms. McKennitt’s 1991 album, “The Visit,” as a child, says her incorporation of textural elements of different cultures has influenced his own albums. “I honestly don’t know if there will ever be another musician that quite sounds like her,” says Mr. Duke. 

“Under a Winter’s Moon” features a prerecorded solo by Ojibway flutist Jeffrey “Red” George. The Indigenous musician also recites “Winter Diamonds,” a poem that expresses gratitude for nature.

“We can’t change the climate if we don’t know the natural world,” says Ms. McKennitt. “And if we don’t know the natural world, we can’t love it. And if you don’t love it, you’re not going to do anything about it.”

The concert program begins with Indigenous actor Tom Jackson reading “The Sky Woman Story,” a tale that describes the creation of North America and its people. 

“Here in Canada, we’re in a pretty deep process of Reconciliation with Indigenous people,” Ms. McKennitt explains. “I knew that Christmas and the birth of Christ was definitely going to be part of this program. And that was so important. At the same time, I was trying to widen everyone’s perspective.”

The second half of “On a Winter’s Night” features actor Cedric Smith performing a live reading of Dylan Thomas’ “A Child’s Christmas in Wales.” 

For Ms. McKennitt, the piece evokes memories of her own childhood in Manitoba. She recalls cherishing simple things such as the rare gift of an orange in her Christmas stocking. Another source of joy in winter was singing in choirs.

“I remember the annual Christmas concert in the gymnasium,” says the artist. “It would be packed to the rafters with parents and grandparents and aunts and uncles, and we’d be performing ‘O Tannenbaum’ in German and ‘Lo, How a Rose E’er Blooming’ and always ending with the ‘Hallelujah’ chorus.”

An act of togetherness

Ms. McKennitt sought to replicate the spirit of those occasions from her small prairie town in her performances inside the Knox church. She was energized by the attentive electricity of the audience members in the pews, many of them attending their first concert since the pandemic lockdowns. 

“They realized that Zoom and all the technological avenues of communication only could go so far,” says the songwriter. “They actually had to have that visceral agora, as our Greek friends would say, [of] being together and hearing and feeling and witnessing the same thing at the same time.”

Ms. McKennitt is an advocate for celebrating rituals and traditions, whether it’s in a Christian church or a Muslim mosque or someplace else, to build the sort of connections that endured in her hometown.

“You have a strength of fabric that happens in a communal sense where people know each other and they’re vested in each other,” she says. “Our mission should be to know each other well, to look after each other.”

Reuters

The European Parliament in Strasbourg, France, before a debate on suspicions of corruption from Qatar, Dec. 13, 2022.

Try as it has to burnish its reputation as a guardian of human rights and clean government, FIFA World Cup host Qatar has once again come under a negative spotlight. Belgian authorities this week arrested six people, including a vice president of the European Parliament, in connection with an apparent cash-for-influence plot allegedly involving the Arab Gulf state.

Scandals have a way of emphasizing what is going wrong. But they also beg asking what is going right.

For the European Union, which is defending its moral and liberal values amid Russia’s war in Ukraine and the rise of autocratic tendencies within its own member states, the arrests have stirred urgent new calls to reform the organization's rules on ethics and lobbying. “This is about the credibility of Europe, so this has to trigger consequences in various areas,” German Foreign Affairs Minister Annalena Baerbock observed.

In Qatar, persistent and credible concerns about official bribery and abuse of migrant workers overshadow evidence that one of the world’s most closed societies is gradually bending toward international standards of accountability.

One measure of that is an increasingly open diversity of civic activity. Qatari youth, the United Nations notes, have formed a vibrant grassroots movement to promote policy responses to climate change. In the arts, Qatari filmmakers are becoming more willing to tackle sensitive cultural issues like marriage and women’s rights. 

This opening of public expression partly reflects exposure to liberal ideas through the local campuses of Western universities. College newspapers, for example, have tackled thorny issues like treatment of migrant workers with more freedom than the country’s professional media, which operate under tight censorship rules.

“The developments currently happening in the areas of filmmaking and higher education are promoting civic engagement and have the potential to actualize more significant changes down the line,” noted Hind Al Ansari, a doctoral student at Cambridge University, in a post on the Wilson Center website. “As more people become involved, over time, others will feel inspired to take part in the project of building vibrant, civically-engaged societies.” 

That bottom-up social change is growing increasingly hard for the government of Qatar to ignore. As Ghada Waly, executive director of the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime, noted last week at the 2022 Anti-Corruption Excellence Awards in Doha, Qatar’s capital, “In order to truly counter corruption and the myriad forms it can take, we must inspire and engage the whole of society to tackle corruption.”

The effect of dishonesty is ultimately to magnify its remedy. No one has been charged with a crime yet, and the Qatari government rejects allegations of misconduct. But each in its own way, Europe and Qatar are being nudged toward greater integrity.