We would like to give a special shoutout to our incredible partner Chalhoub Family Philanthropy who have been supporting our Refugee Education Program since 2014. The Foundation seeks to build bridges between those in Lebanon that need help and those blessed with the means and the will to provide it. Through their support of various programs including essential services of education and food provision, as well as healthcare and social support, they strive to protect the most vulnerable among us who remain voiceless.
Their work on education has supported Syrian children to make dreams of education a reality, offering them a chance to improve their circumstances and find decent work in the future.
Over the nine year partnership with Jusoor, Chalhoub Family Philanthropy have supported over 5,000 children through the literacy program, ensuring children have the best opportunity to catch up on educational gaps in order to rejoin formal education. In the last academic year, 132 students were able to graduate from the Jusoor centers to rejoin formal schooling. They have also supported 1,515 children from schools in the local area to reduce the risk of dropping out of education through Homework Club classes. This resulted in an incredible increase in grades of 77% in the last academic year.
Since 2017, we have also run a summer school to provide 1,240 children with a safe place to learn and play over the summer months. This summer, 295 children benefited from theater, music, arts & craft, sports, storytelling and other activities. We also partnered with the Phoenix initiative to receive materials and curriculum for seven STEM courses including, fundamentals of space and simple coding. Through this initiative, children learn to be creative and problem solve whilst exploring fun challenges such as how to plan to move to Mars. The STEM program was piloted over the summer, and the Phoenix initiative plans to do a teacher training on the curriculum at the end of September, in preparation for the official launch of the classes at the beginning of the academic year.
Chalhoub Family Philanthropy has enabled us to provide a total of over 15,000 care packages to children and teachers at all of our centers with essential warm clothes and backpacks. In addition, 1,400 emergency hampers were provided in response to COVID-19 including life-sustaining food and hygiene items. Our Academic Director, Suha, elaborates on the impact the Chalhoub Family Philanthropy has on Jusoor students:
The Gifts of Giving that Chalhoub group has kindly donated to our students have been valuable and much needed. The students are warm and protected from the rain, because of the jackets, and all students have backpacks to put their books and stationary in when they go to school. I feel really proud when I see our graduates walking to schools with Chalhoub bags on their backs. And I know that we have made a change and because of the support of Chalhoub School in Jeb Jennine, Syrian refugees are receiving an education.
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