Shiur Acher Expanding Horizons: Introducing Arab Youth to ...
Shiur Acher Expanding Horizons: Introducing Arab Youth to the Professional World
The Expanding Horizons program addresses the growing gaps between youth from Arab communities and those from non-disadvantaged environments and the lack of social mobility amongst underserved Arab populations. The program also addresses the need of many individuals to volunteer their time and become involved in meaningful social endeavours through an organized volunteering framework in order to make a difference.
Our program aims to bridge between these two worlds and to make use of the skills, knowledge and motivation of successful professionals in order to widen the horizons of students, serve as positive role models for them and provide them with hope and aspirations for their own future.
Since 2006, this unique program is implemented in Arab schools in cities such as Nazareth, Tira, and Kalanswa. The various courses - translated into Arabic - such as “Rules of the Game” (Law & Civics), "Doing Business" (Economics & Consumerism) and "Health and Medicine" offer the children refreshing insight to a world of possibilities and pursuits and motivate them to seek a better future for themselves. In the 2015-16 school year we are planning to operate even more courses within the Arab sector. The program in the Arab sector is being held as follows:
Groups of volunteers from the Arab Sector who share a common profession such as lawyers, accountants and doctors, are teaching in schools in their own communities (such as in Tira);
Groups of Arab volunteers from a particular organization (such as the Haifa District Attorney Office, Branch of Bank Hapoalim, Medical Centers) are teaching in Arab schools;
Groups of Jewish volunteers from a particular organization (such as Psagot Investments House in Jaffa) are teaching in Arab schools.
The implementation of the Shiur Acher courses in the Arab population has necessitated certain adaptations as compared to our general model of activity. For example, the curricula have been translated and adapted to Arabic, and groups of volunteers, who share common professions but do not work together in a common workplace, were created. This localized model of activity worked excellent in the past 6 years. For this current school year we wish to develop our Infrastructure and to employ a coordinator from the Arab sector in order to extend significantly our scope of activity.