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Service-Learning is a form of experiential learning in which students engage in hands-on service to address community needs and apply course concepts to their experiences.

This educational method would provide an influential and meaningful life experience, not only to our American students but even more so to those in Syria and Middle Africa. The American student-teachers benefit from personal and academic growth by being apart of something greater than themselves and supporting the community around them.

For the students of Syria and Middle Africa, our service-learning program opens doors for students who most likely would not have access to this quality of education at any point in their lives. Teaching them basic lessons in math, science, literature, and entrepreneurial skills will lay the foundation for them to be well-equipped as adults and able to reach success on their own.

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We are Team 1 and our region was Syria and Middle Africa. There are many problems in these regions that should clearly be addressed to improve the living conditions of the people in this region. In this presentation you will see how our group was able to empathize with these people and come up with a solution that will benefit the people in these regions and improve their lives and their futures.

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The most effective contributor to poverty in Syria is the war. It has plunged more than 80% of Syria’s population to poverty. On the other hand the most effective contributor to poverty in Middle Africa would be the bad economy. In 2008 the GDP per capita was only $700. The reason behind this is misallocated strategies that the government decides. However, these problems were far too complex for us to deal with. Therefore we decided to deal with a common issue that both the countries were dealing with; lack of education.

Pic 2: Syrian refugee children ages 5-17 who are currently out of school. (Source: UNICEF)

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Dove are often a symbol of peace. These birds also carry a message of hope, love, freedom and promise.

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We chose to go with the third option. This was the only option that seemed the most sensible and doable. Education in these regions is key to providing the people with a solid foundation to be able to better their own lives and the society they reside in.

SERVICE LEARNING PROGRAM THROUGH NORTHEASTERN UNIVERSITY

•Students majoring in Education and Business/Finance

• Will teach basic courses in math, science, literature, and entrepreneurship skills

•Must be bilingual in English and Arabic or English and Sango

PROMOTIONS

•Social media pages, GoFundMe, posted flyers

FUNDRAISING

•Events at local schools and restaurants

•Money would go toward living costs for teachers

EMPLOYMENT

•Extra money from fundraisers would go toward rebuilding schools

•Qualified people from Syria and Middle Africa would be selected to also decrease unemployment rates

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If we begin with this program on a trial basis, we will start with a 6 month period and bring 50 students, with 25 going to each country. To cover this trial period, we will need to raise approximately $50,000 as broken down in the stats below.
Food: ~$30,000
Housing: ~$20,000
In return for receiving college credit and a global teaching license, students will be responsible for paying their airfare, which would average about $2,000-$3,000 per person.

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This assignment definitely provoked strong emotions and lots of questions for all of us. We were all intrigued by what we had learned and were definitely interested in getting to know more. Everyone understood that poverty is a sensitive topic, which involves a complex array of risk factors affecting the population in a lot of ways. Poverty is one of the most enduring conditions known to mankind. However, by getting to know more we realized that it is an extremely complicated concept to understand. Our group tried to come up with effective measures to help solve poverty in Syria and Middle Africa. This wasn't exactly easy since the problems in these countries are far more complex than any of us would’ve thought. We tried our best to understand the nature of poverty in these areas and we came up with measures to end these problems.

Pic 1: After the bombs: returning Syrians face a bleak future of poverty, hunger, queues for fuel and frequent blackouts

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PROBLEM STATMENT

We plan to aid Syria and Middle Africa by providing educators from first world countries to decrease the lack of education and illiteracy problem by giving people the means to be educated and live their own lives.

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How are you going to measure success rate

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How are you going to measure success rate

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We’ll make a standardized test and have both the kids and the teachers take it on the first and last day and compare grades to see what they learned. This way we’ll be able to decide what we need to change and how we need to make the system better. We can also take surveys and take opinions on how to improve our system.

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1. Represents nations coming together to to fill educational gap

2. U.S. schools vs Syrian and Middle African schools

3. U.S. students vs Syrian and Middle African children

4. Flags in the middle to represent unity

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The importance of idea generation has been a key lesson for us as we've learned design over the past couple of weeks. But what we’ve had to learn recently is that those skills are useless if you don’t have a strong idea to take to the computer. We produced a bunch of ideas before we finally stopped at one, we all agreed on.
These alternatives included;

1. Getting involved with UNICEF

2. Use of Technology - Provide education through the web. Since Both these countries are poor, it would be better to do it in person. Providing technological devices would be too expensive and unrealistic, in that it would be too difficult and unmanageable to train large amounts of people on how to use these devices.

3. Providing educators from first world countries to decrease the lack of education and illiteracy

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The notion of ending poverty certainly seems absurd when you think about it for the first time. After working on this activity the idea of ending poverty through entrepreneurship has been enshrined officially as something the world could achieve. There is a persistent impression of the worlds poor as being incompetent in improving their own lives. However, I now believe that there is a vibrant entrepreneurial spirit in the developing world. Most of these countries have no support from their governments and the citizens have to be innovative to simply survive. Such market-creating innovations play a huge role in stimulating the economy and eventually decreasing the high levels of poverty. After our project, we all realized that entrepreneurship is an effective way of growing a nation’s economy and lifting entire populations out of abject poverty. Projects to stimulate entrepreneurship in more impoverished areas will deliver the results we all hope to see.

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The Promise of Higher Education in War-torn Syria by Suzanne Kawamleh 

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The Promise of Higher Education in War-torn Syria by Suzanne Kawamleh 

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Kawamleh is working on providing higher education opportunities to internally displaced populations in war-torn Syria. She is currently working on developing a long distance education program for Syrian students. If anyones interested we've attached a link to the Ted Talk.

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The Promise of Higher Education in War-torn Syria | Suzanne Kawamleh | TEDxValparaisoUniversity