STREAM E-Learning Camp Counselors

COVID-19 has brought learners of all ages online. E-learning content in Arabic is scarce, and K-12 content in Arabic is extremely limited. There's an opportunity to teach young children coding skills while at the same time employing qualifying trainers to teach them how to code. The VIP.fund STREAM e-Learning Camp Counselors program teaches adult learners (university age and older) the skills required to deliver online e-learning programs to children ages 6-14 and then connects them with future employers. The program includes virtual classroom management techniques, and introduction to SCRATCH, and other STREAM tools. Our first cohort are Syrian refugee youth, and our solution has the potential to create online jobs for refugees in host countries where local jobs are not available. The solution can expand to other languages.

Unemployment is high in the Middle East/North Africa (MENA) region and has been the highest in the world for over 25 years, reaching 30% in 2017. This is further exacerbated by wars and displacement, as refugees living in host countries are unable to find work due to lack of education as well as visa restrictions. In the time of COVID-19, the situation is even worse, with children at home unable to access education online due to lack of course content, especially in Arabic, which has an extremely limited offering of STREAM classes.

Parents struggling to find solutions to keep their children both entertained and educated at home during COVID are looking for solutions. In Syria, for example, there are no online courses at all designed for children, and the need is vast, considering how many years of education these children have already missed because of the conflict. Even in Saudi Arabia, there are very few quality opportunities for children to learn STREAM skills online. Thus, we hope to close this gap between Arab youth unemployment and tech-based job opportunities.

Our solution will mobilize refugee youth to run e-Learning/STREAM programs in their native language, Arabic, benefitting children with the creative, inquiry-based, collaborative, and experiential learning model of STREAM. Our initiative teaches these young scholars how to train children online using the MIT SCRATCH programming language and other digital and media tools; their students will be from Arabic-speaking communities across the Middle East, North Africa, and other countries. 

We will create an ecosystem of refugee populations, education, and technology, with a solid online platform to run e-Learning programs. By creating contacts with other organizations supporting youth, we will build relationships worldwide. Funding will allow us to extend the reach of connectivity, fulfilling our core mission of refugee education. In the COVID-19 era, students are homebound. There is a lack of readiness to support online education for refugees, and even less attention to Arabic e-Learning curricula for K-12. 

In short, we will:

• develop an online course to train the trainer -  young refugee adults - to deliver online camps to K-12 children in STREAM.

• provide opportunities for our trainers to deliver STREAM camps to other refugee trainers.

• partner with employers to co-develop the programs and place refugee youth trainers in jobs.

Syria has suffered from a massive drain of human capital since 2011; these youth have little opportunity to develop the skills they will need to rebuild their country. In host countries, they are often excluded from educational and economic opportunity. 

Refugees are 11.6% less likely to have jobs and 22.1% more likely to be unemployed than other migrants. The MENA region has the highest rate of youth unemployment in the world at 25%,  according to the World Bank, and even after living in the host country, the difference only reaches statistical insignificance after 15 years, suggesting that refugees struggle for years to enter the job market. 

With children at home due to COVID who might normally be in summer camps, with parents working from home, unable to devote full attention to their child’s education - our solution provides relevant learning while training refugee youth. Teaching refugee trainers and connecting them to job opportunities expands the possibility of their landing the tech jobs of the future. Refugee youth are thus transformed from aid recipients to education providers with marketable programming skills, generating income for themselves and their communities, as well as being at the forefront of 21st-century learning.

We use STREAM education which allows students to learn problem-solving skills, critical thinking, and collaboration. Our beneficiaries have weathered unimaginable shocks; as we struggle with a pandemic and social injustice globally, we provide them with tech and humanities-based skills, promoting global citizenship.

SME’s will be the fastest growing job market in the MENA, offering business models serving local needs. Investors increased 30 percent from 2015-2017; total funding increased 100 percent. Our solution impacts a population with high unemployment, Arab youth, giving them expansive skill sets and an opportunity to tap into this trend in employment opportunity as valuable employees. 

Little Thinking Minds and RBK are two competitors using similar solutions. RBK’s program is on the ground and requires in-person attendance. They teach coding and connect students with prospective employers, but we offer our program online, getting participants accustomed to learning and teaching remotely. In addition, we focus on early learning programs using SCRATCH, robotics and other skills. Currently, there is a limited number of local providers of these programs in the Middle East, especially targeting job-market opportunities for refugee youth. RBK charges $8000 USD for their training, we plan to offer it free of charge for refugee youth, and subsidize their training through paid trainees and income from the private sector companies requiring their skills, thus fostering both skills and future relationships. Once students graduate, they are qualified for jobs. 

RBK had employed 80-90 % at one time, but we are not sure what their rate is today.

Little Thinking Minds has workshops to advance the skills of existing trainers, but we are creating a new workforce who can deliver online training and serve an underserved but deserving population.

We use SCRATCH, the MIT children’s programming language. We couple SCRATCH with existing online tried-and-true classroom management systems such as ClassDojo and Google Classroom, and combine these with Zoom to deliver a complete solution. 

MIT has a library of research that provides evidence of the uses of MIT SCRATCH as a learning tool for children. https://scratch.mit.edu/research In our program, we felt the challenge would be the language barrier in that this population has not been well served by this particular technology. We tested SCRATCH with a group of students in a pilot program in Arabic and the results were positive. For our trainers, once they became familiar with the menu, key terms and navigation, the tool was easy to use and teach.

The Arab world has one of the highest youth unemployment rates globally, with skilled young people unable to get jobs. Refugees offer a range of skills that are rich with potential but  largely unexplored. Our trainees are talented young men and women, eager to learn and able to produce and give back if given the opportunity. Many are earning degrees in education, computer science, and other sciences that they cannot yet use or earn income from. Our initiative taps into both their resourcefulness and their desire to learn by doing.

The culture of refugee camps can be demoralizing because it detaches its inhabitants from real-world job markets. Online job opportunities are key to their success because with COVID disrupting schools, there’s a race to create online learning opportunities for children at home. We will connect these two populations and create a new generation of young and promising refugee coders, thus creating qualified future professionals, by training them to train children. Both groups trained in Arabic can then cause a multiplier effect in their countries as these younger children learn skills they can apply when they get older.

Each cohort of 10 trainees/mentors can support 90 student coders per month; 100 refugee trainees/mentors can support 900 student coders per month and receive a salary doing so. 

Further long-term benefits include getting young students excited about peer-mentoring communities and working with older students. Trainers will deepen their understanding of:

• the fundamental principles of mentorship

• the differences between various emotional and intellectual spaces

• the importance of culture and community

• and the management of the children they will be teaching. 

They will also learn effective ways to communicate, adapting to their target population, and the relationship between provider and recipient. All this promotes a win-win relationship that can only result in prospective employees already trained in both technical skill and human interaction.

We currently serve and are working with 10 trainees who are displaced refugee youth, ready for employment but without opportunity. We plan to increase the number to 100 by the end of 2020 with our current funding. If we receive additional funding, we will be able to  serve and train 1000 in by the end of 2020, and expand to 12,000 by the end of 2021.

Our train the trainer program is expansive both in terms of practical concept and in potential scaling. Each cohort of trainers can train others using the same material. If we train 1200, they can then train 120,000. The training program is thus scalable, and identifying potential employers is key to the solution. With much of the education moving online, this will further create exponential opportunities. Training the trainer can have a ripple effect, making the enterprise appealing to employers and also a progressive workplace for attracting talent. A company that provides growth opportunities for their employees and training through innovative techniques is attractive to all. Thus, what may seem small and simple in scope can have an extraordinary and replicable global impact.

Potential barriers to our implementation, growth, and scalability include education, business, legal, and finance concerns.

• EDUCATION: Funding to expand our program will result in the ability to create more teams and include more education professionals. Scaling up with learning professionals will improve online classroom management, learning objectives, and outcomes; thus, trainers' ability to meet and work with such professionals will create a connection to the process of mentoring as well as being just skilled in coding. 

• BUSINESS: Overcoming program management barriers in the business realm will include enhanced relationships and outreach to companies, resulting in lasting professional connections between our trainers and their future employers.

• LEGAL: We will need to address possible online employment issues which may vary from country to country. 

• FINANCE: The capabilities of fund transfers may also be obstacles, depending on regulations in different countries.

We are a nonprofit.

STREAM e-Learning Camp Counselors currently has ONE full-time employee, THREE part-time employees, and THREE volunteers.

Rama Chakaki, VIP.fund Co-Founder, is an advocate of Arab youth and a founding member of Arab Women in Computing, the first regional Women Angel Investment Network. She served on the board of multiple companies including TechWadi, PCRF, PACES, The Impact HUB – UAE, Challenge to Change, and Nakhweh. Rama applies 23 years of tech and communications experience to her passion: investing in social enterprises, using technology for social development, and nurturing social entrepreneurs. 

 Moaz Hosny, with a passion and affinity for robotics, has been teaching children for 4 years in STREAM, reaching over 2000 students. After completing degrees in communications and electronic engineering, Mouaz received a scholarship to MIT’s graduate program for Computer Science and Data Analytics, then worked as senior program developer, including program coach with a company specializing in teaching online via STEAM. Moaz was Middle East Ambassador of the Global Artificial Intelligence Team and is lead instructor/curriculum designer of AYA DigiCamp.

Radia Nassar is a preschool teacher with 8 years experience; her coursework includes Montessori,TEFL, and multiple intelligences. With her ability to develop and implement activities that improve learning and behavioral skills, Radia is working to create new methods to move from traditional to online teaching by volunteering with Moauz at AYA Digicamp.

Sarah Hayes, volunteer training consultant, manages humanitarian programs at the UN Migration Agency in Cairo, Egypt. She served in the humanitarian field in Morocco and India and has 9 years of experience working in the field of migration and international development. 

Our partner in this pilot project is AYA Animations, a mission-driven production company established in 2015 by founder Sara Sawaf, an employer based in Saudi Arabia. Aya Animation's goal is to deliver values-based edutainment across a variety of media including apps, books, and educational materials. “The AYA DigiCamp is an online interactive at-home camp for children aged 8-10 years old. Designed to inspire critical, creative thinking, the Arabic-first e-learning experience will engage, challenge, and entertain your child as they learn the basics of animation, scratch coding, and even origami making. Centered around the Aya and Yusuf series, students will use the characters from the values-based edutainment show as they learn and create online. The current level junior level is offered for kids with no previous experience in scratch coding or animations. An intermediate will be introduced at a later stage.”

Our trainee feeder networks include:

• Syrian Youth Assembly
• Zarqa University / Jordan (Syrians from Za'atari camp and Jordanians)
• Bir Zeit Universiry / West Bank
• MAPS / Lebanon
• Gaza Islamic University / Gaza

We provide training for a fee to those who can afford it (Trainees A). We then use that funding to subsidize training for (Trainees B). Upon graduation, both Trainees A & B will find employment from private educational institutions and companies. There’s also the potential to receive a revenue stream from the employers.

Trainees A will pay a fee to cover the cost; this fee will be used to run the program. Employers will pay a fee to gain access to the trained resources. Grantors can assist in covering the operational cost of running the program including accounting, administrative oversight, technology tool costs, and trainer fees.

We’re applying to Solve seeking funding and partnership potential from the Solve team and its community partners. Our solution is innovative because it connects marginalized communities with employers through a unique and scalable program. The outbreak of COVID-19, resulting in children being home from schools, inspired us to develop an e-Learning model, giving access and training to technology tools (MIT SCRATCH) and others, and teaching curricula that enables refugee youth - also unable to return to school - to become trainers for children online in the Arabic language. Each trainer learns online, conducts guided classes under the supervision of an existing trainer, leads classes independently, and receives the training materials to train others. These are student-run, student-centered spaces that enable a relaxed and nurturing environment to foster tech skills, creativity, camaraderie, and innovation.

Our goals in partnership are:

• Growing our trainee base - By scaling our program growth with other educational institutions, we can forge valuable partnerships with other potential trainers.

• Developing content - Expanding our program content with support from the MIT Scratch team and others will enhance the deliverables, increase participation, and augment further job prospects in various fields of programming.

• Increasing employment - Reaching a wider scope of companies who can employ our trainers will provide further opportunities for our target population.

We’d like to partner with the MIT SCRATCH Team to explore advanced training and application of the SCRATCH coding language. We are speaking with several MIT SOLVE/refugee education teams to explore ways of reaching a wider beneficiary pool. These include solution providers in the K-12 space and the target trainees: youth refugees with backgrounds or interest in education, computer science, coding, and IT.

With more than 3 million displaced Syrians under age 30, lack of access to opportunity constitutes a critical problem for the region. Syria suffers from a massive drain of human capital; these displaced scholars have little opportunity to develop the skills they need to support themselves and rebuild their country. In their places of refuge, they are frequently excluded from educational, economic, and political opportunities. This crisis of exclusion could, in the long term, pose a serious risk for the Middle East and the world, potentially contributing to further conflict.

Feeding on the energy, talent, and drive of this booming younger generation for whom displacement is a reality but also an opportunity, we started our project with the greatest hopes for their future employment under circumstances that are less than ideal, but still possible. Our work has only just begun. Our project hopes to rewrite the rules of educational intervention and employment to help those who are not in a position to do so themselves.

Refugee youth are the gateway to peace in their communities. Opportunity is all they need to prosper. Our scholars are agents of circularity. We seed their dreams and complete the cycle of generosity as they give back to their benefactors. The agency and social remittances these future leaders represent are a net benefit to an increasingly globalized world. We hope you share our sense of optimism in the force multiplying power of our train-the-trainer initiative and that you will help us empower them.

A Syrian living in Za’atari refugee camp in Jordan climbs a ladder seeking Wi-Fi connectivity so she can do her homework - this is resilience. Another Syrian in the same camp invents solar-powered lights out of cloth flowers so his siblings can do homework at night - this is resilience.

“I dream of becoming an engineer specializing in renewable energy. Like other refugees, we had a hard time adjusting to living in tents without power and sanitation. I made a small electric generator from the motor of a broken fan using wind power. I also made an egg beater from the motor of a remote control car. I believe I have the talents and the skills that would allow me to excel in my work with the necessary training. I installed solar panels in my neighbor's and family members' dwellings for free. I am aware that displacement will continue whether from conflict or environmental disasters. I continuously thought of how to make this trauma easier to endure for displaced refugees. Our region can harness solar, wind and hydraulic energy to cover its needs, cleaner sources of energy that would not harm the environment.” ~Ahmad AlMasri

Syrians have proven their ingenuity in countless ways. We train them so they can train others and become productive employees in turn. They have studied and adapted in their host countries - now we hope to show them the world is listening to their stories, their adaptability, their self-reliance, and their potential to give back.

We are committed to focusing on how displacement as well as the pandemic will likely affect the developing world and specifically the students we are supporting. The effects of COVID-19 among the displaced is expected to be more severe than we have seen so far, and unless we intervene in productive ways, we can expect spillover effects that will significantly impact these students, their families, and their host countries.

Education relevant to opportunities in the job market is of paramount importance and results in building a new generation, contributing to lasting peace at home and avoiding social disenfranchisement. We help design education solutions for displaced youth, with a focus on building portable skills. Training refugee youth prepares them for the job market by working with others, building their entrepreneurial, technical, language, and soft skills along with their confidence.

Our goal is youth empowerment and employment. Our E-Learning Camp Counselors Program is an intervention solution that helps our students thrive by: 

...fostering opportunities for lifetime learning and literacy through STREAM technology

...providing employment and internship opportunities.

...employing technology to scale learning experiences and reinforce digital literacy.

...and building social connections with the global community.

In addition to our train-the-trainer pilot program discussed in the Good Jobs and Entrepreneurship Prize, our organization embraces technology in the following ways, including:

• E-Learning Platform & Webinars: Finding job-focused online education using webinars and micro needs. This is suitable for seekers of alternative education.
• Crowdfunding Platform: Helping students create online crowdfunding campaigns by extending digital tools to grow and scale our virtual community to displaced students and educators in newer conflict zones.
• Peer 2 Peer Mentorship Platform: Exponentially building virtual online communities emphasizing mentorship. Automating the mentor/mentee relationship will include scheduling appointments, rating mentors for accountability, and providing digital certification for mentors.
• Piloting the Use of Virtual Reality: Creating more engaging and impactful crowdfunding campaign experiences for donors.

Our vision over the next three to five years to grow and scale our solution to affect the lives of more people by:

...augmenting our educator funding programs from the initial focus on Syrian, Palestinian youth to others areas in the Middle East and other locations for marginalized youth.
...growining our existing technology platforms’ features and functions.
...expanding our e-Learning programs to remain current with job market needs.
...growing our train-the-trainer programs to keep current with the market needs of online education due to COVID-19.