EVS LEBANONYWCA Beirut – project „Join us”

Angelika Marzec & Joanna Dołoszycka

March – September 2017

YWCA – Beirut◦ YWCA was established in Beirut in the beginning of 20th century. First they engaged in

bible study meetings and other missionary activities but gradually started offering

vocational and recreational courses for women and providing them with

accommodation. They worked with Palestinian refugees and helped improve working

conditions for women and decrease child labor in Lebanon.

◦ Current profile: We are a women-led organization that achieves positive change by

providing ongoing programs, activities and services for women, youth, and

communities. Our multidimensional program strategy reaches hundreds of women and

youth every year.

YWCA – Technical College

◦ Over one hundred years in the field of technical education. The YWCA-Beirut Technical

College offers vocational programs with BT/TS government diplomas, as well as Special

Diplomas certified by the General Directorate of Vocational and Technical Education

◦ The students can choose between many of the following courses:

◦ Accounting & Computer, Sales & Marketing, Administrative & Office services, Hospitality

Techniques (sales & production), Pre-School Education (full time) and Hair dressing, Assistant

Chef, Make-up and Skin Care, Manicure/Pedicure, Administrative Assistant, General

Accountant (short time).

Project „Join us”

◦ Volunteers can take part in arranging activities in coordination with the administration

and some school teachers. Volunteers will be required to develop an action plan and

suggest or introduce innovative strategies to improve the teaching of foreign

languages. They will introduce numerous activities designed to promote foreign

language teaching and learning under the framework of intercultural practice and

non-formal education.

Tasks

Here are some of our tasks:

◦ Providing English courses for YWCA target groups (mainly youngsters and women)

◦ Meeting language teachers to review lesson plans

◦ Using non-formal educational methods and creativity to facilitate learning

◦ Organizing extracurricular outdoor activities for youth

◦ Participating in educational workshops and sessions

◦ Organising Youth Clubs that aim to develop students’ intrests (Sports, Cinema and

Photography, Debates)

◦ Writing reports and documenting EVS activities

Women’s Day 2017

◦ 8th March 2017 was a big day for

YWCA, we all celebrated Women’s

Day by awarding 20 women for their

exeptional work. During the event

many speeches were delivered and

the awards handed personally by the

minister of women affairs.

English classes at YWCA

Storytelling Charades

Post-its Chinese whispers

The dating game Grammar classes

Youth clubs

Sports class Debates

Rise up!

◦ Every year on April 24, YWCAs around

the world celebrate World YWCA Day.

This year, the theme was Rise Up:

Support and Invest in Young Women’s

Rights. YWCA believes that now, more

than ever, it's time for young women

and girls to RISE UP!

◦ And we did! We organized classes and

for a week we talked about women’s

situation and the work YWCA is doing

to improve it.

Documenting YWCA’s everyday life

Documenting many YWCA’s events and activities, among which:

◦ Taking pictures of teachers to help create a teachers portfolio

◦ Taking pictures of English classes

◦ Taking pictures of recreational clubs for members and volunteers of YWCA

Social media

◦ The pictures taken by Angelika were

used on YWCA’s facebook page and

helped build organization’s image

NGO Fair

◦ One of our tasks was to represent our

organizaion at an NGO Fair in April. We

sat at the stand for two days and

answered questions regarding the

organization’s mission, vision and

current projects.

Junior Chefs Competition

◦ We were invited to a cooking

competition to cheer for a team of

students from our school. It was a very

impressive contest and the whole

event was very interesting.

Polish Week

◦ In May we organized a Polish Week for

our students, we talked shortly about

Poland’s history, culture, and

language. But the most interesting and

fun activity was Polish cuisine class, we

showed them how to prepare easy

Polish dishes and sweets.

Omar and Mohammad withthe Polish flag

Rami prepares faworki

Graduation

◦ On May 26th the school held

a graduation ceremony for their senior

year students. We all gathered in the

theatre room, the teachers, the

students, and their parents. The

students were handed their diplomas

and awards for outstanding academic

acheivments. To our genuine surprise,

we were also given awards for our

efforts, it was unexpected and we

greatly appreciate it.

Albert Nassar Foundation

◦ The foundation is located in a small

village Bkennaya, near Beirut. They

organize vocational courses for women

and during the summer they ran a

summer camp for children aged 7-14.

Our task there was to organize fun,

interactive English activities.

English activities

Art class Class about fruit and vegetables

English performance

◦ At the end of the summer camp the

youngest kids put up a spectacle of

song and dance, among others, they

sang an English song we had prepared

with them.

◦ The second part of our performance

was a little more complicated. We

stood on the stage to express our

gratitude (in English) and two of our

students accompanied us to interpret

our words into Arabic.

Tripoli

◦ In Tripoli we attended an Arabic course

in the month of August.

◦ During that time we started working

with SEED foundation, our tasks there

were devided, on of us was teaching

English and the other one was

preparing evaluation of a project

developed by the organization. Sadly,

we had to leave Tripoli due to

unforseen complications.

Moving back to Beirut

◦ We came back to Beirut and during

the last days of our stay in Lebanon, we

worked on final results:

◦ Adding articles to our blog

◦ Preparing a presentation

◦ Putting together a short video

◦ Writing reports

Results

◦ English performance at Albert Nassar Foundation

◦ Brochure with non-formal English activities

◦ Video Albert Nassar Foundation

◦ Video presentation YWCA

◦ Blog

◦ Presentation

شكرا ًShukran – Thank you - Dziękujemy