AY 2007-2008 Projects - Near East and North Africa

Country                                   Lebanon
City                                          Shouf
Host Institution                       IRFAN Druze Schools

Project Description
The EL Fellow will teach EFL 20 hours per week at IRFAN Druze Schools. The other 20 hours will be spent preparing lessons, and creating an English language rich environment for staff and students through different activities such as organizing and running an English conversation club and/or a drama club, and/or starting a writing lab to assist students with their writing skills. In addition, as time permits, the EL Fellow will conduct teacher-training sessions for teachers at the IRFAN branches, and assist in the development of curriculum, materials, assessment and lesson plans.

Project Objectives
In its continuous effort to realize a better future for the new generations, the IRFAN schools management is carefully implementing a wide range of self development techniques, involving most of its managerial cadres. Since 1991 The IRFAN management has been working on reestablishing and reforming its educational programs and educating techniques and has also been doing a lot of in-service training to their teachers each in their own specialty. In addition to playing a major and very active role in promoting education in the different regions, the branches are situated in, as well as encouraging cooperation between different schools through conducting and organizing several seminars and conferences. Al IRFAN recognizes that a long-term international teacher-trainer, available to give training sessions, would make a large step forward in raising the level of teaching. This program aims at supporting this institution in its task of raising the teachers' professional level, which suffered during the Lebanese civil war. IRFAN school administration is anxious to strengthen its English language proficiency. The EL Fellow for this position will be resident in the Shouf area of Lebanon, a largely conservative, rural area located 35 minutes from Beirut. As such, this position will require a Fellow that can manage the unique cultural sensitivities of the Druze and the limited cultural and social activities in Shouf.  

About the Host Institution
The IRFAN establishment is a Lebanese non governmental organization, operating in the educational, social and health relief fields since 1973. Since its founding, the IRFAN branches and services have kept an always ascendant development status on all capacity, service quality, and geographical expansion levels.  That is why today it is one of the largest of its kind in Lebanon, consisting of five school branches in Mount Lebanon, Bekaa and the south, and one main complex in El Shouf region. The IRFAN branches serve four main Lebanese departments and regions, with an approximate total of 600,000 Lebanese residents in more than three hundred villages, small towns, and localities, and is now offering education to some 5000 school children, boys and girls, and also offer other necessary health services to many areas in those regions through its hospital and dispensaries. IRFAN Schools are all qualified as NGOs as they are part of the mother IRFAN Charitable Est. They insure quality education to the Lebanese public without any social, religious, or other discrimination, and offer a large and considerable amount of aid and support to those who cannot afford to pay for their children’s education.