Story festival in remote Pakistani village promotes literacy with 500+ books

May 20, 2016

By Noman Manzoor

4 min read

But its walls have never been as colorful as they were covered from top to bottom with over 500 stories handwritten and illustrated by the school’s students.

On one special day, more than 200 students, parents, teachers, Ministry of Education officials and the media gathered for the school’s first “Story Mela”—a festival of books and reading highlighting tales authored by educators and learners in third through fifth grade.

“There has never been such a Mela in the history of this school since its inception 26 years ago,” said second grade teacher Akbar Ali at the January festival, standing by his seven-year-old daughter, Sadaf, who beamed as she greeted visitors arriving at the event.

The Story Mela was organized entirely by teachers at the Dargah Dur Mohammad Shah Primary School. They were inspired to launch the initiative after training with the Pakistan Reading Project, where they learned techniques focusing on read-aloud activities, and story-making and storytelling to enhance reading skills.

The U.S. Agency for International Development-funded Pakistan Reading Project is a five-year project with the objective to support the provincial and regional departments of education throughout Pakistan to improve the reading skills of 1.3 million children in first and second grades. It is implemented by the International Rescue Committee and its partners Creative Associates International, World Learning and the Institute of Rural Management.

To date, the project has implemented reading interventions in more than 1,900 schools in six districts of Sindh, reaching more than 121,000 children in the region. Across Pakistan, more than 501,000 children from 8,100 schools have benefited from this project.

Engaging communities, and cultivating a culture of reading is one of the major objectives of the project. The Matiari Story Mela is one of many community-driven, sustainable initiatives to support reading that have been sparked by its teacher training component.

Literacy initiatives like this are especially critical in Sindh, where students perform worse than their peers in any other region of the country. Research has shown that reading is the foundation of learning and, when taught in their mother tongue, students have an easier time learning a second language.

Inspired by collaboration & new reading techniques

After six months of implementing the USAID-funded Pakistan Reading Project in their classrooms, teachers at Dargah Dur Mohammad Shah Primary School volunteered to arrange a Story Mela on their own.

“I learned a lot from the Pakistan Reading Project’s training,” said Abdul Karim, a first grade teacher at the school. “When I shared sample stories for the Mela and started working with a few kids, many other students approached me and volunteered to be a part of this activity. Team work has enabled us organize this colorful Mela.”

The Story Mela planning effort was led by head teacher Mohammad Ismail Waryiah, who was trained in a three-day orientation for head teachers. Mohammad Ismail was highly inspired by the project’s activities.

One key component of the project’s methodology is to support ongoing teacher professional development and support through collaboration among educators. This is often done through regular Teacher Inquiry Group meetings, where teachers work together to improve their lessons and the culture of reading within their school.

“Unlike other projects, the Pakistan Reading Project has a unique methodology. It not only conducts teacher trainings but also follows up regularly. Teacher Inquiry Group meetings ensure that activities learned by teachers and allied staff, are actually practiced in the classroom,” says second grade teacher Akbar Ali.

Ali says that these meetings provide teachers with the feedback they need to improve their lessons and boost opportunities for students to read and learn. The Story Mela grew out of this collaborative effort and guidance from the project, he says.

Books growing in the courtyard

Among the crowds of young readers and their families, Ministry of Education Officials were among those touring the storybook gallery—a walk through the school courtyard where hundreds of handmade stories hung on display.

Impressed by the gallery walk, District Education Officer Mohammad Akbar Memon said that the need for the USAID-funded Pakistan Reading Project and these types of literacy events in Sindh is great.

“Students of Sindh who still can’t read well are promoted to grade six or seven. Low enrollment, dropouts, poor standard of education, and issues of quantity versus quality—all of these are related to the basic issue of reading,” he said. “By addressing these we can solve many problems and kids will be happy to go to schools.”

Around the corner from the gallery walk, students were busy creating and displaying fresh stories. Other young readers demonstrated their skills through a read-aloud activity, using a variety of reading techniques, including probing, phonemic awareness, comprehension, and more.

Witnessing the gains in literacy among the school’s students, due in large part to the USAID-funded Pakistan Reading Project, and the dedication of its educators to literacy education, Taluka Education Officer Abdullah Mallah commended the project.

“I consider the Pakistan Reading Project a backbone for children’s education as well as for teacher training, “he said, noting that the project methodology improves reading skills and creates confident and independent learners.

Students’ reading success fuels a desire to learn more and succeed, he said.

“Better understanding leads to motivation and happiness, and urges students to learn and read more. The Pakistan Reading Project is a wonderful project for [grades one and two] students and teachers alike.”

15-country study maps out tech solutions to meet refugee education needs

May 16, 2016

3 min read

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]

15-country study maps out tech solutions to meet refugee education needs

By Jillian Slutzker

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”2/3″][vc_column_text]A new 15-country study unveils the most up-to-date research and best practices for technology solutions to meet the education needs of the world’s refugee and internally displaced children and youth.

IDP and refugee children may lack access to formal schooling due to geography, language or financial barriers, cultural stigma or school overcrowding, or may be suffering from psychosocial trauma.

Overcoming these barriers with tailored information and communications technology for education (ICT4E) solution is the focus of The Landscape Review of Technology for Refugee and IDP Education, commissioned by Creative Associates International and its partners All Children Reading: A Grand Challenge for Development—a partnership of the U.S. Agency for International Development, World Vision, and the Australian Government—Gesellschaft fur Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) and the mEducation Alliance.

“Where schools are inaccessible, for a variety of reason, education technology solutions can help counter learning loss and keep children on track so they can rebound more quickly and succeed educationally during and after conflict,” says Eileen St. George, Director of Education in Conflict at Creative.

Nearly half of the world’s 50 million people displaced people are under 18 years old, according to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees. Globally, one out of three out-of-school children of primary school age lives in a conflict zone.

To learn more, join the May 18 Webinar: Education and forced displacement – How can technology make a difference? Click here for more information.

Mapping context, challenges and best practices for design

Highlighting case studies from Jordan, Kenya, Pakistan South Sudan and elsewhere, the study maps out the context and complex challenges for addressing refugee and IDP education needs—available for policymakers, practitioners and donors in self-paced modules through the e-learning platform CreativeU.

The research also illustrates examples of successful ICT4E interventions and provides a step-by-step framework for designing effective ICT4E programs that are culturally relevant, sustainable, and respond to the particular educational and psychosocial learning needs of population across a spectrum from low technology to high technology environments.

“Solutions will succeed in meeting the needs of these learners only if they are adapted to the technology and cultural context,” says Ayan Kishore, Senior Associate for Technology for Development at Creative. “We can’t use a smartphone application where people only have access to radio. In program design, we have to consider power sources, available technology, bandwidth and other resource factors when ascertaining what our best tools will be.”

In addition to picking the right tech tools, program content should also be tailored to the learning and psychosocial needs of the targeted group of learners, adds St. George.

“Our programs and curriculum will look different if, for example, we are teaching literacy skills to a young child who has directly experienced trauma or if we are equipping an adolescent in a refugee camp with marketable vocational skills,” St. George says. “Most important is that our ICT4E solutions truly serve the educational needs of the children and youth who need them most.”

For more information on the Landscape Review of Technology for Refugee and IDP Education or to view the three learning modules, visit: https://creativeu.com/en/ict4e-for-refugees[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/12″][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/4″][vc_widget_sidebar sidebar_id=”sidebar-primary”][/vc_column][/vc_row]

Countering violent extremism depends on women, say experts at DC Symposium

April 19, 2016

4 min read

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]

Countering violent extremism depends on women, say experts at DC Symposium

By Jillian Slutzker

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”2/3″][vc_column_text]Women can and should play a larger role in identifying and reducing the root causes that drive individuals to radicalization and possible violent extremism, according to experts at the CVE Symposium in Washington, D.C.

“Exclusion breeds conflict and the processes that are used to resolve those conflicts must be inclusive of a broad range of stakeholders in order to be effect and sustainable,” said Michelle Barsa, Deputy Director of Policy and Conflict Programs at the Institute for Inclusive Security, speaking April 6 at the symposium, which was co-hosted by Creative Associates International and the International Peace and Security Institute.

Violent extremist groups have to an extent incorporated women into their ranks —as fighters, recruiters, spouses, fundraisers and more. Life for women in violent groups typically can be horrible, and they are often targets of gender-based violence. Nonetheless, these groups are often far better at understanding how to exploit and appeal to gender than most international actors and national governments working to counter these threats, said Barsa.

They may play up liberation narratives, offering women a role in the cause—something women may not be getting in their regular social environments.

To be effective, CVE responses need to be adaptive and more inclusive, taking into account these dynamics.

“We have this cultural problem in the West where we only see women as victims…in so doing we really negate the viable and real reasons that women support violent extremist groups,” said Barsa, noting that promoting gender equity and improving governance in communities vulnerable to recruitment could help reduce appeal of these groups among some women.

Meaningful women’s inclusion in CVE is mission critical and goes far beyond just checking a box of having women in the room, panelists said

“If you do not include women in this particular process it will not be successful…” said Allison Salyer, Senior Gender Advisor at the U.S. Agency for International Development. “We shouldn’t have to keep making that case, but we do.”

Paul Turner, Senior Conflict Advisor at Creative, says that the issue of including women in CVE efforts must be an ongoing priority for a coalition of actors working in this sphere.

“Multilateral and bilateral agencies, governments, military, nongovernmental organizations and the private sector must persistently engage the issue as we continue to work in conservative societies, suppressive cultures and conflict environments,” he says.

Women make security forces more effective

A successful CVE strategy must incorporate a contextual and multifaceted understanding of women’s many roles beyond victims, said panelists.

While women are found in a range of supporting and active roles in violent extremists groups, they are equally powerful players working to counter these groups—as mediators, supporters of early warning systems, educators and as members of security forces

In some of the hottest spots for violent extremist recruitment, citizens often share a common grievance of abuse by national security forces, said Barsa.

However, when women are integrated into state security forces, surveys show that community perceptions about those forces’ trustworthiness begin to improve. Female security forces have proven to be more likely to resolve disputes nonviolently as compared to their male counterparts, said Barsa.

Women also improve search and seizure operations; for example, finding hidden weapons caches in women’s quarters that are typically closed to male forces.

“We need to remember women as security providers, not just the recipients of security,” said Barsa.

Beyond women, focus on family & community

While effective CVE mandates women’s meaningful participation, like any individual, a woman is part of a larger family and community system.

Rather than working with women in isolation, CVE programming should take into account women’s social systems and relationships, said panelists.

“I want us to stop thinking about women….let’s focus on family, community and the experience that people have,” said Ritu Sharma, Senior Visiting Fellow in the Youth, Security and Prosperity Initiative at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

As a force either supporting or countering violent extremism, a woman will have influence within her own family and often her community.

Sharma suggests looking at cases of resilience among women, youth and communities to study what is working among the vast majority who resist and prevent violent extremism, in order to better understand the factors at play in recruitment.

This holistic view of systems and resilience can help governments and CVE actors better support women and youth working on the ground to counter recruitment among their families and peers.

“My challenge to us as a CVE community is to take a much more holistic viewpoint,” Sharma said.

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/12″][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/4″][vc_widget_sidebar sidebar_id=”sidebar-primary”][/vc_column][/vc_row]

Countering Islamophobia: Reflections of an Unofficial Ambassador

April 11, 2016

By Benjamin Orbach

12 min read

Thirteen years ago, Sundos, a slight young woman wearing a headscarf, approached me in a cafeteria at the University of Jordan in Amman. She’d written an essay in English about what she did during the summer and asked me to review it before she handed it in to her teacher.

When this young muhajiba approached me (a foreigner and stranger) and asked for help, she crossed a cultural chasm. When I responded positively, I was transformed from a 27-year-old graduate student into an unofficial ambassador. I trace the origins of the America’s Unofficial Ambassadors initiative to that optimistic moment.

America’s Unofficial Ambassadors is a citizen diplomacy initiative aimed at increasing the number of Americans who volunteer in areas of human development throughout the Muslim world. During the past four years, the program has sent close to 100 U.S. nationals from different faiths and backgrounds to volunteer in nine countries throughout Africa, Asia and the Middle East. The volunteers stay for a week to one year.

The premise behind our work is that each of us can make a difference in America’s multi-faceted and increasingly complicated relationship with the people of the Muslim world. Further, we can each participate in building mutual understanding by sharing our experiences at home, through blog posts, published essays and community presentations. By (our own) conservative estimate, we’ve reached 100,000 Americans with our mission.

Upon reflection, I find my experience in Jordan and then in Egypt — I had to evacuate Jordan when the war in Iraq began — to be a surprising journey ground in persistent idealism, intellectual curiosity and good luck. Today, Jordan is a hub of expat activity, from international development workers to foreign students to employees of Fortune 500 firms.

In 2002, I was just one of a handful of Americans at the university, and really in all of Amman. For decades, Cairo was a mecca for Arabic language students; in 2013-14, a paltry 37 American students studied abroad in Egypt. I backpacked through Syria by myself in 2002 — today the country is mired in a conflict with no end in sight. While much in these places has changed recently, my experiences were, for me, a building block to a career of creating partnerships between America and the Muslim world.

On the morning of 9/11, I was headed to Arabic class when I found out about the attacks. I’d written my Master’s thesis on Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida that spring, but in the days after 9/11, I became transfixed with a need to know what regular people in Arab countries were saying about the attacks, bin Laden and the United States.

I realized that I needed to speak Arabic well to find answers to my questions. That summer, I set off on a yearlong quest that led me to smoke-filled salons and open-air coffee shops.

I engaged in what seemed like 1,001 discussions about U.S. foreign policy, the Jews (I’m one of them) and 9/11. Those debates were great for my language acquisition in that they were repetitive to the point of being scripted. I played the role of unofficial spokesman as I tried to dispel conspiracy theories and shed light on questions about the war with Iraq, my country’s intentions for the region and the U.S. visa process.

The more interesting conversations, though, were the ones that went beyond the theater of these sessions and my flashcard-bolstered “talking points” on weapons of mass destruction. These other, one-on-one conversations, usually while sitting in a car or a similarly private but public place, were about the details of affording to marry, aspirations for an easier life somewhere else, and our culture that streamed across borders — we all loved Mariah Carey (except me).

Salah, an Egyptian cook, taught me about the face of poverty in the absence of economic opportunity; I learned from Kholood, a Jordanian teacher, about the deficiencies of education systems that don’t foster critical thinking skills; and Fadi, a Palestinian refugee, gave me insight into the ins and outs of leading a second-class citizen’s life.

These conversations weren’t characterized by “woe is me” hardship. Instead, I felt a lot of warmth and gained new insights into the concept of hospitality, the culture of family and being part of historic places and traditions. I often wondered if Egyptian or Jordanian visitors to the United States were treated as well as I was treated by my hosts. My year of persistent idealism in the face of harsh current events wasn’t an easy experience, but it was fulfilling, so much so that whenever I hear Arabic, I can’t help but smile. I don’t think there are a lot of Americans who feel that way today.

During the course of that year, I felt that it was useful to engage in respectful dialogue with people who had never met an American before. When I helped Sundos with her English homework and later taught her to use a computer, I knew that I was doing something worthwhile. I was helping her to achieve something she wanted by teaching her an important skill set. My efforts were their own reward, but they also contributed to a larger vision we shared for the future.

Publishing “Live from Jordan”

Benjamin Orbach, founder of America’s Unofficial Ambassadors, stands with a student at the Sukma Bangsa school in Aceh, Indonesia.

When I came home in August 2003, I was shocked by how much my opinions had developed compared with the discourse that prevailed in the wake of the Iraq war. I wrote a book about my experience in an effort to share the stories of the people I met and the common ground we inhabit.

When Live from Jordan was published, I traveled around the United States speaking to groups, mostly at Jewish Community Centers, about the realities beyond our stereotypes. I felt that each of us has a responsibility to engage with and even educate “our own” on difficult topics; if we don’t, no one will, at least with the potential to have an impact. Every audience asked me why I used the term “Palestine,” but there was always someone else who asked, “What is it that I can do to make a difference?”

In answering that second question, a three-fold problem troubled me.

First, there are societal challenges that people face in communities across the Middle East, Africa and Asia, whether that is attaining a quality education or landing a job that offers a path to dignity. For the most part, local resources will not meet these challenges, and external resources, such as foreign assistance, are not forthcoming.

Second, people in these countries think they know America because of our entertainment industry or our foreign policy choices, but they actually have never met an American; there is little in-person interaction. That absence of exchange is a breeding ground for demonization. And third, I found a similar reservoir of ignorance about the Middle East and Islam among my fellow Americans; Muslims were flag burners, angry young men and misogynists, not happy, sad and complicated individuals like us.

Years later, we are addressing these three challenges with America’s Unofficial Ambassadors. Each of our unofficial ambassadors — from university students to elementary-school teachers — commits to achieving three things: to have an impact by supporting a hand-picked school or local organization in implementing its mission; to dispel stereotypes of Americans by engaging in respectful cultural diplomacy; and to build mutual understanding at home by sharing his or her experiences.

Volunteers reflect optimism & demonstrate intellectual curiosity

Rob Handerhan (center), a senior at The College of New Jersey, volunteered as an English teacher at a cultural center in Tajikistan in summer 2015. He is pictured here with two of his students.

During the past four years, the majority of our unofficial ambassadors have been 18- to 24-year-olds. They have volunteered in a number of ways, from teaching French in a shepherding village in Morocco, to designing a website for the only autism nongovernmental organization in Tajikistan, to training domestic abuse counselors in art therapy in Indonesia.

Our young volunteers have turned out to be the demographic that not only has the most time and money to contribute, but also possess that requisite idealism and intellectual curiosity to make a difference.

Most of our unofficial ambassadors fall into one of two categories: “aspiring activists” out to make a difference on specific issues or “accidental advocates” who come from the cluster of worldwide do-gooders interested in helping others while enjoying their own adventure.

For example, in the summer of 2015, Rob Handerhan, a senior at The College of New Jersey, volunteered as an English teacher at a cultural center in Tajikistan. Rob taught eight classes every week. While he isn’t a professional teacher, his students, from teenagers to Ministry of Justice employees, gained from the enthusiasm he brought to the classroom. He did things that were different from the norm, like using Beyoncé’s If I Were a Boy to teach the second conditional (i.e. “If I won a million dollars, I would …”).

Rob, an “aspiring activist,” served as an unofficial ambassador in part because he cares about countering Islamophobia. A history major with an interest in the Islamic world, he took being a citizen diplomat seriously, striving to speak Farsi and ready with a smile, hello or a handshake at all times. After returning home, he presented his experience at Busboys and Poets, a popular restaurant in Washington, D.C., and on campus to social science and language classes.

In response to Donald Trump’s inflammatory comments on his campaign trail, Rob reflected, “When I think about my Tajik friends and students’ hopes for living and working abroad, I recall their desire to access better employment and educational opportunities so that they could then bring what they learned and earned back home to better their lives, the lives of their family members, and their community in general. Everyone I met was committed to enacting positive change in their country. And, in stark contrast to the fear and hate surrounding this same debate in America, everyone I met was incredibly welcoming and generous and treated me as an honored guest in Tajikistan.”

Rob may choose any number of career paths when he graduates. If he works on these issues professionally, the experience he gained as an unofficial ambassador will serve as a professional building block. Rob may one day write a book on the role that the arts can play in combating Islamophobia and may become a thought-leader on these issues.

Role of “accidental advocates

Katrina Marks (left), a senior at Villanova University, volunteered in Zanzibar in summer 2015 with the Forum for African Women Educationalists, a non-governmental organization that supports the empowerment of women and girls through training courses and advocacy.

Yet, as I think about fostering mutual understanding in America today, the contributions made by our “accidental advocates” are no less impactful than those of our “aspiring activists.”

Katrina Marks, a senior at Villanova University, was another of our summer 2015 unofficial ambassadors. She volunteered in Zanzibar with the Forum for African Women Educationalists, a non-governmental organization that supports the empowerment of women and girls through training courses and advocacy.

Katrina researched and wrote elements of funding proposals, developed content for FAWE’s social media, managed their Web-based platforms and participated in workshops on sexual harassment and science, technology, engineering and math programming. Katrina is interested in oral history and the study of collective memory, so after work, she would regularly visit Zanzibar’s Old Slave Market. She studied how local tour guides explained the history of the island’s slave trade and she gathered research for her senior thesis.

Katrina was drawn to volunteering in Zanzibar as a chance to do something different and to answer her own questions about a part of the world she found admittedly scary.

Though she studied abroad in China and visited Europe, she recalled: “I didn’t have Muslim friends before I went to Zanzibar. And then I did. I spent six weeks working at a female empowerment NGO with four brilliant, passionate, extremely hardworking Muslim women. I don’t suggest that I learned everything I needed to know about the complicated and diverse religion of Islam in six weeks and by talking to four people. … But I was tired of being stuck in my own head, of feeling fear when I see a man with brown skin and a backpack, of mispronouncing the names of my classmates.”

Spreading the word in Michigan

When she returned home to Kent City, Michigan, a town of 1,100 people, Katrina gave a presentation about her experience to the Historical Society, a group of seniors, most of whom attended the same Lutheran church that Katrina’s family has attended for nine generations.

The presentation wasn’t about, “What I did last summer … with the Muslims.” Rather, Katrina spoke about an exotic and less-understood place where she worked with the local community to empower young women and lived in a foreign culture that challenged her to consider new ideas — like whether it was more respectful (or less) for her to wear the hijab.

At the presentation, Katrina thought she would get a lot of questions about living in a Muslim country. Instead, she said, “A few people asked for clarification on geography. Some more wanted to know what food I ate. Only one person asked how my mother handled my time abroad. As the town history buffs, they wanted to know more about my research of the slave trade.”

Katrina may have traveled to Zanzibar looking for answers for herself, but she became an advocate for tolerance in the process. Because of her local roots, she was able to reach an audience that we never could have connected with from Washington, D.C. With her presentation, she framed her experience in a Muslim community into the common story of cross-cultural engagement in a foreign land, one that a World War II veteran in the audience identified with as being similar to his own experience overseas.

Closing the familiarity gap

I’m sure that being Muslim is a special feeling, but being Muslim in America has become special in the wrong way in recent years. Muslims have become the “Other” to an exponential factor, with just 38% of Americans saying they know a Muslim, according to a 2014 Pew Research Center poll. A December 2015 Bloomberg poll finds that 65% of Republican primary voters favor “a temporary ban on all Muslims who are citizens of foreign countries from entering the United States.”

These polls suggest the familiarity gap is widening. More than 300,000 American students studied abroad in 2013-14, but just 2.4% of them studied in a Muslim-majority country according to the Institute of International Education. It is telling how few young Americans are developing networks and having experiences in parts of the Middle East, Africa and Asia that will enable them to, at a minimum, correct hate speech from their own personal experience, if not serve as an agent of larger change.

More “accidental advocates” required

While I personally identify with “aspiring activists,” our need for more “accidental advocates” is striking.

The basic conclusion from any positive cross-cultural interaction is that while each of us has different pieces of culture to offer the world, we are all the same, regardless of race, ethnicity, religion or citizenship. Reaching that basic conclusion, though, requires either first-hand experience or the trust to believe someone who shares one’s experience, like Katrina at the Kent City Historical Society.

Muslims are not exempted from this cross-cultural conclusion. My hope is that America’s Unofficial Ambassadors and similar programs will fill this growing familiarity gap. If we succeed, there will be a range of metrics that tell that story, from literacy rates and economic opportunities to perceptions of Americans in different places overseas.

Given the state of our discourse today, though, the most important metric may well be the number of Americans who react to outlandish proposals by some presidential candidates with a shake of the head and an evidence-based explanation for how the guy just doesn’t know what he is talking about. As Katrina put it, “I was scared when I went to Zanzibar, and I am still scared today. But not of Muslims. I am scared of ignorance. That is the danger.”

Benjamin Orbach is the Founding Director of America’s Unofficial Ambassadors at Creative Learning, a Washington, D.C.-based not-for-profit organization. This blog originally appeared in The Islamic Monthly. He can be reached at [email protected].

MOROCCO: Boosting reading skills by changing educational systems & student habits

March 21, 2016

2 min read

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]

Morocco:

Boosting reading skills by changing educational systems & student habits

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”2/3″][vc_column_text]Middle school is a critical time for students to master reading and comprehension. Unfortunately, Moroccan middle school students have traditionally scored below average on standardized reading tests. Creative and the Ministry of Education are working to transform the education system to improve reading and comprehension among middle school students. They are focusing on developing literacy-focused teacher training, integrating reading skills across the curriculum, engaging students with interactive teaching methods and empowering youth to be advocates for education and keep their peers in school.[/vc_column_text][vc_separator][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][vc_column_text]

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”2/3″][vc_column_text]

THE KEYS TO BUILDING A LASTING READING PROGRAM IN MOROCCO

Morocco struggled with low overall student achievement and literacy levels.
What are the keys to developing a reading program that will change those results and support student learning, especially at the critical stage of middle-school? Literacy expert Abdelkader Ezzaki explores these questions in this blog.

Read Story[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_separator][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”2/3″][vc_column_text]

MOROCCO CHARTS NEW COURSE FOR IMPROVING MIDDLE SCHOOL LITERACY

Middle school is a key time to master critical reading skills, but in Morocco middle school reading levels were down. See how the RASID program equipped teachers and coaches with the tools they needed to transform reading instruction and create a culture or literacy.

Read Story[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][vc_column_text]

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_separator][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][vc_column_text]

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”2/3″][vc_column_text]

MOROCCAN YOUTH REDISCOVER JOY IN LEARNING

Soon after most children start formal school, the joy of learning, a joy that begins at birth, fades. If learning is a core goal, then we must create an environment that allows learners to rediscover the joy inherent in all learning, explains education expert Eric Rusten in this blog.

Read Story[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_separator][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”2/3″][vc_column_text]

TOOLKIT GIVES MOROCCAN YOUTH THE LEAD IN TACKLING DROPOUT

Through the Youth Speak process, youth leaders—both those in and out-of-school—investigate the factors contributing to students dropping and design solutions based on their findings to stem dropout in their communities.

Read Story[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][vc_column_text]

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_separator][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][vc_column_text]

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”2/3″][vc_column_text]

SHARING THE STAGE FOR GAINS IN EDUCATION

Teacher training goes digital through the Improving Training for Quality Advancement in National Education program! This blog recounts the exciting debut of the e-learning courses for educators developed by Creative and the Ministry of Education.

Read Story[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/12″][vc_column_text]
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/4″][vc_widget_sidebar sidebar_id=”sidebar-primary”][/vc_column][/vc_row]

The path to youth engagement & empowerment in Jordan

February 2, 2016

5 min read

Youth here are starving to participate in social, economic and political decision-making processes.

Nearly 70 percent of the country’s population is aged 30 or younger, according to the United Nations, and 22 percent of the population is from 15 to 24 years old. However, the World Bank finds that youth unemployment is around a staggering 28 percent, and there are few avenues for youth to participate in political process.

In January, Creative’s youth employment team visited eight governorates in Jordan, including Amman, and spoke to more than 250 young men and women—representing youth political parties, youth councils, youth with disabilities and youth serving organizations. We also carried out rapid assessments of existing community assets, which can be used to better serve marginalized youth.

Our goal was to identify the major challenges these young people face and to hear directly from them about their needs and aspirations to thrive. We also aimed to learn about youth-led strategies and initiatives that have already been successful, and to consider ways to scale them up.

Widespread obstacles, multiple marginalizations

Sabri A. Rbeihat, former Minister of Political Development and of Parliamentary Affairs in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, speaks about youth issues in Jordan. Photo by: Ashraf Mohamed

In general, Jordanian youth report significant economic, social and political challenges. In our interviews, we found that youth feel excluded and marginalized by government, community leaders and other adults, particularly in at-risk communities.

In the economic realm, youth face high levels of unemployment and/or underemployment, particularly among university graduates and women. There is also a mismatch between youth workforce skills and job market demands—including soft skills, work-readiness, and practical, entrepreneurial and technical skills.

The lack of economic opportunity and inadequate training is discouraging many young job seekers and students, as one 25-year-old man in Ma’an described.

“There should be providers to help youth in job placement, work-readiness and soft skills,” he said. “I stopped my study at the high school after being an A+ student, because my brothers graduated from universities and couldn’t find jobs.”

Youth with disabilities feel that they have access to even fewer opportunities.

As one 28-year-old woman with a disability in Ma’adaba said, “Disabled youth are marginalized and no care is given to them. We need laws and regulations that enforce the employment rights of disabled youth.”

Already up against high rates of poverty, many youth also lack access to finance and collateral for credit to fund their initiatives.

In the social and political realms, youth have little trust in national and local government institutions. They see that laws and regulations on governance, elections, labor and decentralization are not youth-friendly. Nongovernmental organizations and community development centers are perceived as being weak.

Another challenge is limited intellectual property rights protection for youth-led businesses, so there are few incentives for and many threats to innovation and entrepreneurship

Compounding these obstacles, more than 1.3 million refugees and asylum seekers are currently in Jordan, according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, adding pressure to already strained political and economic systems.

These challenges that youth encounter have helped to contribute to increased crime, violence, drug use and radicalism.

What Jordan’s youth want

After concluding our discussions, field visits, surveys and questionnaires around Jordan, our team gained invaluable insight into what youth really want and what types of strategies might work to meet their needs.

In terms of inclusiveness, youth want to engage in the design, planning, implementation, and evaluation of projects to ensure sustainability.

As one 18-year-old said, “We [youth] must be involved…. We receive supply-driven programs that do not meet our needs. This non-inclusive approach will never lead to sustainable programs for youth. We must be engaged in designing the right programs for our own needs.”

The desire to engage is certainly there. Another youth said that he and his peers are “starving to participate in social, economic and political decision-making processes” if only they had the tools to advocate for themselves as a group on important issues.

Funders and implementers of development projects, as well as local government ministries and officials, should take to heart.

As one youth put it, we must speak to Jordanian youth “in their own language”—referring to our approach of truly engaging youth in planning and leading change on the issues that matter to them.

In the governorates we visited, our team observed outstanding ideas and initiatives created by and led by youth. We also garnered excellent media coverage from local radio stations, local press and newspapers eager to celebrate the creativity and success of Jordan’s youth.

Bringing in government & the private sector

Youth, civil society representatives and government officials speak about the challenges facing youth in the country and assets and ideas to overcome them. Photo by: Ashraf Mohamed

For genuine youth engagement and empowerment to occur, we must widen involvement to include not just youth but youth allies, such as the private sector and government partners, from mayors to governors to ministers.

At an event our team hosted called “The Path to Youth Participation and Empowerment in Jordan,” attendees had the critical opportunity to exchange ideas with these business leaders and policymakers.

By bringing these key stakeholders together, we were able facilitate the sharing of lessons learned from youth initiatives across different governorates and catalyze coordination among the stakeholders on youth strategies.

This meeting was also a key step in building and strengthening relationships between local and national governments and between the private sector and civil society, including youth serving organizations.

The way forward for real results

At the end of our trip—having fostered an extensive coalition of allies to empower youth and extended our thorough, nuanced understanding of the challenges and issues Jordanian youth themselves identify—we are even more certain that real change can only occur when youth themselves are involved in every stage of creating change. And we have field-tested many innovative methods and approaches with the very young people we seek to serve.

But perhaps our most important accomplishment of the journey was to leave behind a sense of optimism among Jordanian youth that together we can design and implement initiatives that will bring real results and real opportunity for them to engage in the social, economic and political life of their communities and country in a meaningful way.

With reporting by Elizabeth Mullen

Ali Kamel is a Senior Associate in Economic Growth at Creative Associates International.

Elizabeth Mullen is a Program Associate in Workforce Development and Youth Employment at Creative Associates International.

CVE efforts need to embrace good development programming

January 26, 2016

5 min read

As governments struggle to meet the ongoing threats of violent extremists, experts and observers are questioning whether efforts to undermine the attraction of these movements and ideologies are working. In some cases, they actually have the reverse effect.

“Many years of experience have proven that short-sighted policies, failed leadership, heavy-handed approaches, a single-minded focus only on security measures and an utter disregard for human rights have often made things worse,” said United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to the General Assembly on Jan. 15. “We all lose by responding to ruthless terror with mindless policy – policies that turn people against each other, alienate already marginalized groups, and play into the hands of the enemy.”

Today, CVE initiatives across government agencies, as well as those implemented by the private sector, NGOs and others, are rapidly evolving and being rigorously evaluated.

The implications of this additional layer of complexity will have a direct impact on international development organizations that are implementing these increasingly sophisticated strategies.

Some experts in the field of countering violent extremism suggest that getting rid of the CVE “label” or “brand” would actually be more beneficial to the cause. Peter Mandaville, Ph.D., the Senior Advisor in the U.S. Secretary of State’s Office of Religion & Global Affairs, questions whether CVE may be a fatally “tainted brand” with programs that often create tension between governments and the groups they seek to benefit. This tension may lead to an increased risk of radicalization.

During a Jan. 14 presentation called “Limits of CVE” at the National Counterterrorism Center, Mandaville cited the fallout of an ongoing CVE initiative in the United Kingdom.

After the 2005 London bombings, authorities launched the PREVENT program that sought to protect vulnerable individuals who could be at risk of radicalization. PREVENT combined police and intelligence services efforts to cut off extremism at the source by funding community programs and addressing the alienation felt by many young Muslims.

However, the irony is that it has become counter-productive, said Aminul Hoque, a lecturer and author on British Islamic identity at the University of London.

“If the idea was to understand the roots of extremism, the roots of radicalization, by putting a magnifying glass across the Muslim communities of Great Britain, what has happened is that it has widened the schism between the ‘Muslim’ us and the British ‘other’,” Hoque is quoted in a BBC article by Frank Gardner, “Prevent strategy: Is it failing to stop radicalisation?”

Separately, Dal Babu, who was a chief superintendent with the London Metropolitan police before he retired in 2013, was quoted in a 2015 article in The Guardian as calling PREVENT a “toxic brand.”

Mandaville noted that examples like PREVENT and similar programs have become powerful recruiting tools for violent extremist organizations by spreading the message of “us vs. them,” further isolating target communities. Although most people are open to the PREVENT strategy and understand its importance, it is seen as a spying tool across Muslim communities.

Focus on good development work

Instead, Mandaville asks whether the increased attention and focus on CVE as a distinct policy space risks devaluing existing tools in diplomacy and development that address the underlying causes of violent extremism.

He discussed the potential of eliminating the countering violent extremism funding stream and instead investing more in existing programs that closely correlate to democracy, conflict transformation and development. Funders could mandate the inclusion of a CVE component into a project’s goals and work plan.

Mandaville’s argument does not intend to stop CVE work. Rather, he recognizes that we can implement effective programming, with underlining CVE measures and outcomes, without taking the focus of the original intent envisaged for the project.

Paul Turner, Senior Conflict Advisor and CVE expert at Creative Associates International, says: “I think an important point to make here is that both are necessary, how to place the CVE lens over existing relevant programming just like we saw with approaches to conflict prevention and later stabilization operations. Complementing this approach should be an effort to design CVE specific interventions that can help chart a course forward.”

In the United States, a new CVE Task Force that was announced Jan. 8 will coordinate domestic activities across agencies.

“Beginning in the summer of 2015, representatives from 11 departments and agencies reviewed our current structure, strategy, and programs and made concrete recommendations for improvement,” according to the Jan. 8 statement by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. “The review validated the objectives of the 2011 strategy but identified gaps in its implementation. The new task force will coordinate government efforts and partnerships to prevent violent extremism in the United States.”

Embracing CVE “relevant” work

As CVE initiatives envelop policies and programs, implementing organizations cannot forget that they have been doing CVE relevant work for decades, whether we called it that at the time or not.

Those who just want to contribute to peacebuilding efforts will say that we don’t care what we call the effort, whether it’s CVE, community resilience, capacity building or conflict transformation. However, it is important to recognize that we are operating in a certain amount of gray space that comes with CVE.

There is no clear line between CVE relevant work and CVE specific work, which tends to blur individuals’ perceptions and raise concern between non-lethal assistance and intelligence work. So, as we progress forward in the gray space of CVE or peacebuilding, let’s not forget that our goals and objectives are in one way or another nested in our effort towards the same outcome.

As for the brand of CVE, use it as necessary on an individual case by case basis.

Roman Terehoff is a Training with Industry Fellow selected from the U.S. Army Civil Affairs branch on a one-year assignment at Creative. Roman will share with Creative his skills and experience as a civil affairs operator, while learning innovative industrial management practices, techniques and procedures. The views presented are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of U.S. Department of Defense or its components.

New project to set up early warning systems for conflict in West African elections

January 5, 2016

3 min read

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]

New project to set up early warning systems for conflict in West African elections

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”2/3″][vc_column_text]WASHINGTON, DC—Fifteen West African countries will receive support to prevent and manage conflict and violence through a new U.S. Agency for International Development program implemented by Creative Associates International. www.CreativeAssociatesInternational.com.

The five-year “Reacting to Early Warning and Response Data in West Africa” project (called REWARD) will support the Economic Community of West African States’ (ECOWAS) use of innovative technology and apply best practices to detect and respond to conflict across the region from political violence, violent extremism, and ethnic conflict to sectarian tensions, perpetration of atrocities and organized crime. This assistance is from the American people.

“By enhancing the ability of ECOWAS to identify conflicts before they escalate and rapidly respond using a variety of political, security and assistance mechanisms, the project will support ECOWAS’ goal of catalyzing a sustainable culture of conflict prevention throughout West Africa,” says Tom Wheelock, Senior Vice President at Creative.

West African states have also experienced multiple outbreaks of election-related violence in recent years, which has prompted USAID and regional stakeholders to seek effective conflict prevention and mitigation mechanisms.

“REWARD presents the opportunity to build capacity in preventing electoral violence in four ECOWAS member states together with local partners in the region,” says Jeffrey Carlson, Director of Electoral Education and Integrity at Creative.

Civil society and ECOWAS member states will be key partners in helping to improve the effectiveness of conflict response initiatives.

Creative will carry out the project in partnership with two nonprofit organizations: Fund for Peace, a global leader in early warning and conflict assessment with experience in more than 50 countries; and Karuna Center for Peacebuilding, a leading peacebuilding implementer with programs in more than 25 conflict-affected countries.

Early warning & electoral violence expertise

Creative’s Electoral Education and Integrity Practice Area is a leader in international electoral monitoring and security, having conducted electoral security assessments in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Burundi, Colombia, Haiti, Guatemala, the Philippines, South Sudan, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

In May, Creative’s team piloted a unique early warning system using social media analysis to track incidents of electoral violence in Guyana’s national elections.

In partnership with USAID, Creative’s Electoral Education and Integrity team has published two handbooks on Best Practices in Electoral Security and an Electoral Security Framework. These handbooks lay out approaches to identifying risk factors for electoral violence, and designing and implementing strategies to prevent, mitigate and mediate it when it does occur.

About Creative Associates International

Creative Associates International works with underserved communities by sharing expertise and experience in education, economic growth, governance and transitions from conflict to peace. www.CreativeAssociatesInternational.com

Based in Washington, D.C., Creative has active projects in more than 15 countries. Since 1977, it has worked in nearly 90 countries and on almost every continent. Recognized for its ability to work rapidly, flexibly and effectively in conflict-affected environments, Creative is committed to generating long-term sustainable solutions to complex development problems.

Started by four enterprising women with diverse backgrounds, Creative has grown to become one of the leaders among the U.S. private sector implementers of global development projects. Creative is minority owned and operated.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/12″][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/4″][vc_widget_sidebar sidebar_id=”sidebar-primary”][list_category_posts_widget title=”RELATED STORIES” cat_id=”170″ order_by=”date” numberposts=”3″ excerpt=”yes” excerpt_size=”15″][/vc_column][/vc_row]

Creative & American University partner to identify lessons learned in reconciliation

December 14, 2015

5 min read

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]

Creative & American University partner to identify lessons learned in reconciliation

By Jillian Slutzker

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”2/3″][vc_column_text]In the past five years, 15 conflicts around the globe have either erupted or reignited, displacing some 60 million people, according to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees. Renewed conflict in many of these hotspots— Cote D’Ivoire, Yemen and South Sudan, for example—underscores the pressing need for durable solutions, beyond a mere ceasefire.

Through a research partnership, Creative Associates International and the American University School of International Service identified lessons learned in reconciliation efforts to improve on-the-ground programming and support post-conflict societies in achieving sustainable peace.

“When done well, reconciliation efforts transform an environment and build cohesion in broken societies. Our intention was to learn from both the theory and the practice of reconciliation so that we can ensure Creative’s efforts minimize the risk of post-conflict recidivism and maximize the opportunities for peace,” says Paul Turner, Senior Conflict Advisor at Creative, who oversaw the research project.

The research team—consisting of American University graduate students Alexsandra Canedo, Ashley Law, Justine O’Sullivan and Sacha Stein—examined four case studies of reconciliation efforts in post-conflict societies, including Indonesia, Liberia, Nicaragua and Sierra Leone.

While the term “reconciliation” is usually associated with efforts after a conflict has ended, the researchers say that their findings may have implications for communities in the midst of ongoing conflicts today.

“Programs can begin in the midst of violence if there is an interest and willingness to begin a peace process,” says Stein. “The conflict need not necessarily be completely resolved or finished in order for reconciliation programming to begin.”

Measuring cohesion

During and after conflict, relations between groups are fraught with mistrust. Neighbors may have perpetrated violence against one another, or government forces may have committed grave abuses against citizens.

Rebuilding relationships, establishing trust and creating cohesion is a key aim of reconciliation programs, and can be a critical buffer against reignited conflict, say the researchers.

To measure the effect of reconciliation programming in the four selected countries, the team evaluated each country using a modified version of the Social Cohesion and Reconciliation (SCORE) index, which was developed by the United Nations Development Program in Cyprus, USAID and the Centre for Sustainable Peace and Democratic Development.

SCORE measures essential elements of reconciliation using indicators such as intergroup contact, perceptions of social threat and active discrimination. It also evaluates social cohesion with indicators such as satisfaction with civic life, freedom from corruption and trust in institutions.

The working hypothesis behind SCORE is that social cohesion affects or predicts reconciliation, and in turn, the propensity of a country to remain or become peaceful.

In their book “War and Reconciliation: Reason and Emotion in Conflict Resolution,” William Long and Peter Brecke, both professors of International Affairs at the Georgia Institute of Technology, researched 430 violent conflict in 109 countries.

Their research revealed that 64 percent of countries where at least one reconciliation event occurred—like a meeting between former opposing factions—did not return to violence. Only 9 percent of countries where no such event took place remained violence-free.

A hybrid approach for holistic change

The American University researchers examined a range of reconciliation approaches in each of the four selected countries, from truth telling sessions in Sierra Leone to interfaith dialogue in Liberia, land reallocation in Nicaragua and a national truth and reconciliation commission in Indonesia.

These initiatives were most effective, say the researchers, when various reconciliation activities originated from both the national level and the grassroots level.

In Indonesia, for example, a failed national truth and reconciliation commission gave way to numerous disparate local reconciliation efforts. While these local truth telling sessions and dialogues made headway in some communities, the results on a national level were mixed, says Stein.

“Grassroots actors took it upon themselves to initiate reconciliation programs in their specific communities, but because they are operating at the grassroots level, this has resulted in a somewhat disjointed sense of national reconciliation,” she says.

In Liberia and Nicaragua, by contrast, grassroots efforts to repair relationships and address psychological trauma from war were supplemented by government-led initiatives to address lingering grievances and acts committed during the conflict on a national scale.

“In Liberia and Nicaragua, society really benefited from the hybrid approach, which was a top down and bottom up relationship,” says Canedo.

For example, Canedo explains, when local mental health outreach in Nicaragua began to show success in helping survivors overcome conflict-related trauma, national actors scaled up the program—even inaugurating a Master’s degree program in mental health at a local university to expand the pool of qualified personnel available to assist victims of the conflict.

These local-national partnerships are critical to scaling up reconciliation efforts from a micro to macro level so that good programs “don’t remain localized in the context from which they emerged and are able to spread to wherever their presence is relevant,” says Stein.

Local knowledge for better interventions

International partners are also often key allies of national governments and grassroots organizations in scaling up effective reconciliation efforts.

However, the researchers caution that to succeed, each intervention must be tailored to the local context and take into account the specific traditions and grievances of its community members and stakeholders.

“Local consultation is the way to start your program,” says Law. “It helps to avoid that prescriptive, Western approach that sometimes actors have when they go into local communities.”

Law says that by including local actors in the design and implementation of reconciliation activities, implementers can grow local capacity and increase the chances of programmatic success and sustainability.

In Nicaragua, for example the Catholic Church, which is a very central institution in the lives of many citizens, played a key role in leading truth telling sessions in a familiar setting, which already had credibility in the eyes of both victims and perpetrators.

“The church created an alternative commission….and worked at a community level, getting victims and perpetrators together to discuss their issues within this sanctified setting and come up with resolution and ways forward,” says O’Sullivan.

Ultimately, says the research team, whether specific reconciliation activities take place on a grassroots or national level, and whether they target individual or collective grievances and healing, practitioners must keep in mind that reconciliation is a long and multipronged process. Healing, the researchers say, takes time.

“There is a difference between reconciliation and forced integration,” says Stein. “You don’t have to have [a population] give up their identity or give up their independence to have a reconciled environment. But you can build social cohesion and reduce the distance between populations.”[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/12″][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/4″][vc_widget_sidebar sidebar_id=”sidebar-primary”][list_category_posts_widget title=”RELATED POSTS” cat_id=”130,131″ order_by=”date” numberposts=”3″ excerpt=”yes” excerpt_size=”15″][/vc_column][/vc_row]

Morocco charts new course for improving middle school literacy

October 20, 2015

By JC Finley

4 min read

“In the past, I wasn’t interested in books,” admits Aicha Kefsaoui, a middle school student at Ibn Ajroum in Tiflet, Morocco. But that changed after Aicha’s teachers were trained in techniques to help students improve their reading comprehension.

Now a book lover, Aicha says “I ask myself how come I didn’t pay attention to reading before?”

This is exactly the turnaround the Moroccan government is seeking to achieve through the Reading for Academic Skills and Individual Development in Middle Schools (RASID) project.

RASID is an eight-month initiative funded primarily by Morocco’s Ministry of National Education and Vocational Training with support from the U.S. Agency for International Development. The project is implemented by Creative Associates International.

RASID provides teachers and coaches with materials and methods to strengthen critical reading comprehension skills at the middle school level.

“This program addresses a serious problem in the middle school system: students’ low reading skills and low overall school achievement,” explains Abdelkader Ezzaki, Chief of Party for RASID.

While short in duration, RASID’s program staff reports the initiative has been “very successful.”

Low literacy rates underlined need for educational reform

Morocco’s educational system has struggled with low reading performance among middle school students, despite high enrollment numbers.

According to a national assessment, only 25 percent of eighth grade students were able to distinguish the main idea of a basic text and only 4 percent could summarize its content.

The issue is compounded when students with below-grade reading comprehension begin middle school and are overlooked by teachers who presume they have the reading skills expected of a seventh grader.

Those struggling students are more likely to be absent and dropout. Only 53 percent of students enrolled in middle school continue on to high school, reports USAID.

Aware of the challenges facing its schools, the Moroccan government initiated a series of education reforms to better meet the needs of middle school students.

One of those initiatives was the Improving Training for Quality Advancement in National Education (ITQANE) project, implemented between 2010 and 2014 by USAID and Creative.

During the ITQANE project, it became evident that student learning was impeded by weak reading skills. That realization led to the creation of a pilot program to test tools to improve student reading comprehension.

In collaboration with the Ministry of National Education and Vocational Training, Creative developed reading kits for subject teachers, instructed master trainers and assessed student learning outcomes.

The ITQANE reading pilot was implemented in 35 schools over an eight-week period and resulted in improved student reading performance. Students also scored higher in other subjects such as math and science.

After seeing the success of the short-term pilot, the Ministry of National Education and Vocational Training decided to institutionalize the program as part of the government’s continuing educational reform efforts.

ITQANE’s pilot reading program success laid the groundwork for the launch of the RASID project in April 2015.

Toward a culture of reading

“This program is developing a whole new educational pedagogical culture around reading,” says RASID project leader Abdelkader Ezzaki.

Indeed, RASID set ambitious objectives to achieve in its eight-month duration. The ultimate goal: to establish a system that will enable all middle school teachers in the country to improve reading instruction across subjects, including Arabic, French, math and science.

In collaboration with the Ministry, USAID and Creative strengthened existing training and coaching guides to help teachers integrate reading comprehension methods into their subject areas.

Together, they also developed a curriculum map to help teachers identify linkages between reading strategies introduced in RASID trainings and the existing middle school curriculum.

Using these training guides, RASID set out to train teachers from all regions of the country.

Through a series of training workshops, 220 teachers and 35 ministry master trainers were taught how to use the guides and curriculum map linkages.

“I believe I became a more skillful teacher,” one Arabic language teacher from Al Qods reported after receiving the training, noting that her students are more attentive in class and “are able to read within their subjects.”

At the end of the training, the teachers and ministry master trainers were themselves equipped to train an estimated 27,000 teachers during the 2015-2016 and 2016-2017 school years.

“It’s not an easy task at all,” admits a teacher at Ibn Ajroum. “However, we decided to give it a try.”

Turning the page

Morocco’s Ministry of Education and Vocational Training has been a leader and a champion of the RASID project—from its inception to its realization. Ministry personnel were involved and engaged in the project’s design, workshops and trainings.

As the eight-month project winds to a close, there is cause for optimism that the low literacy rates in Morocco will gradually improve.

RASID has equipped teachers and coaches with tools that are already showing a difference in the classrooms.

Teachers in the pilot region of Rabat have already integrated the program’s content and strategies. At workshops, teachers have demonstrated how they are implementing program strategies and other creative ways to improve students’ reading skills.

Regional authorities have indicated their commitment to undertake the training of teachers and follow-up on the in-school and in-class implementation.

It seems that Moroccan schools are turning the page in favor of reading. That renewed focus is evident in schools where teachers have received the training.

“Teachers are organizing events to raise awareness about the importance of reading. Teachers and students are organizing exhibits inside the schools to raise reading awareness. They are organizing reading clubs, making greater use of the library, encouraging home reading and doing book reports,” says Ezzaki, RASID’s project director.

“The program,” he concludes, “is developing a new school culture in favor of reading.”

Morocco: Creating a culture of reading in middle school

October 20, 2015

1 min read

Middle school is a key time to master critical reading skills, but reading comprehension has been low among Moroccan middle school students in recent years. The RASID project has started to reverse this, empowering teachers and coaches with the skills they need to bring effective reading instruction to their students and spark a love for reading.

New book profiles 8 Saudi women who broke barriers

October 1, 2015

3 min read

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]

New book profiles 8 Saudi women who broke barriers

By JC Finley

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”2/3″][vc_column_text]A doctor. A government official. An attorney. An environmentalist. A university dean. An author.

These are the professions of eight women who overcame strict gender barriers in Saudi Arabia to achieve professional success—and change society.

Profiled in the new book, Successful Saudi Arabian Women: Their Gems of Wisdom, these career women open up about their experiences navigating the religious and cultural gender barriers of the ultraconservative Kingdom, where women comprise only 16 percent of the total workforce.

“We want to succeed within our culture, not outside of it,” explains Huda Al-Jeraisy, a businesswoman and leader within the women’s wing of the Riyadh Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

Sharing their journeys, making public not only their successes but the challenges they faced along the way, required a great deal of trust, acknowledges Creative Associates International’s Sharon Freeman, Ph.D., a co-author.

“We didn’t know each other but these women were open enough to trust Charito and me with their life stories.” That, Freeman says, is further proof that “all things are possible and that women help to make the impossible possible.”

Charito Kruvant, co-founder and CEO of Creative, applauds Freeman’s dedication to making this book a reality.

“As a woman, I was eager to read each of the eight stories,” notes Kruvant, whose firm specializes in global education development. “I was moved by their stories and dedication.”

Creative is the publisher of Successful Saudi Arabian Women: Their Gems of Wisdom.

Men, Women & Success

Succeeding within the kingdom requires the approval of family patriarchs. The women in this book credit their success, in part, to their fathers and their husbands who approved and encouraged their education, dreams and careers.

“The fact that I’d be blazing new trails and achieving something that no one else in the family had achieved motivated me to work really hard,” recalls Asma Abdulaziz Abdullah Al-Sultan, MD, a pediatric cardiologist. “It’s difficult for us as professional women in Saudi Arabia because in order to work we need more cooperation and assistance inside the home and outside of it as well.”

In Saudi Arabia, the religious and social imperative of gender segregation has historically meant fewer educational resources and limited professional opportunities for women. That is slowly changing.

“When I step back and reflect on what has happened over the past four decades with respect to the education of females and the changes within our society as a whole, I am astounded,” writes former Vice Minister for Girls Education Norah Abdullah Al-Faiz, who was the first female to be appointed to the position of Vice Minister.

Today, more than 56 percent of enrolled university students in Saudi Arabia are women. And yet, Al-Faiz reflects, “women have always been and remain subordinate to men in every field.”

Modern Success within a Traditional System

Successful Saudi Arabian Women offers readers the opportunity to see how these accomplished women have achieved success in their respective fields while respecting the values and expectations of their society and religion.

“I know that some of our traditions and systems in Saudi Arabia are complicated,” acknowledges Banyan Mohmoud Al-Zahran, the kingdom’s first female licensed attorney and the first female owner of a law firm. “But I’m hopeful that by understanding them and working through them, we can nevertheless help those in need.”

That lesson comes at a young age for young Saudi girls, who are encouraged to veil themselves.

“I learned that if you really want to achieve your goals, it’s best to work within the society rather than outside of it,” notes Al-Jeraisy. “Not wearing a veil sends a message – and it’s not a message that helps you win.”

Successful Saudi Arabian Women is available for $19.95, plus shipping and handling. It may be ordered online.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/12″][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/4″][vc_widget_sidebar sidebar_id=”sidebar-primary”][/vc_column][/vc_row]