Project Context
Located at one of the northern-most points of Lebanon, Wadi Khaled, Bahiya Al Hariri Public School is home to about 150 high school girls. It’s an area prone to conflict and high school dropout rates. Exacerbated by the dire economic circumstances, girls face structural challenges because they may not be registered as Lebanese citizens, they may be married young, or their male family members may be prioritized over them in terms of education provision.
Amid these circumstances, Mrs. Izdihar is working on elevating girls’ education level in the area, preparing them for the path they choose, whether it’s university, technical school or direct entry into the job market. They are excited about learning. They are ambitious. They are confident in the idea that no opportunity is out of their reach, even when faced with constraints being women in a challenging cultural context.
Members of the community involved with the nafda movement therefore see a need to equip the girls with skills that will enable their sense of self-sufficiency and financial independence.
Project Description
While deciding on a priority area, the students expressed an interest in developing tech skills, which are unaddressed in the current curriculum and in high demand on the job market. They want to understand and dissect the challenges in their surroundings and brainstorm solutions to them.
The girls are developing a traffic light to limit recurrent accidents at their school’s entrance. Thanks to Mrs. Izdihar’s commitment to fostering community partnerships, Naji, a local with a deep understanding of the community’s needs, helped translate and deliver coding lessons. This empowered the students to pursue engineering, even focusing on agriculture, which is pertinent to regional economic activity.
In partnership with INJAZ Lebanon, students interested in STEAM and literature/humanities alike are also learning about entrepreneurship, design, marketing and trade. Those who might not pursue a traditional career path would develop the skills necessary to begin charting their own paths.
Though faced with many challenges, the Bahiya el Hariri school team and students have adapted to each of them. They are leaning into the need for continuity and ensuring equal opportunity between graduates of their school and graduates of others at the university level. This means working on integrating their project activities into the curriculum. The students themselves are going a step further to transfer knowledge and learnings to incoming project cohorts, ensuring the sustainability and growth of the learning process.
Achievements to Date
- 3 teachers dedicated to managing the project
- 22 of 150 girls participated in the first project
- 75% increase their problem-solving and digital competencies (coding Arduino, Adobe Illustrator)
- 92% increase in entrepreneurial skills
The Human Heartbeat
During the period of project implementation, conflict broke out and the area became highly militarized. It was dangerous for the girls to walk to school, and community members collaborated to get them transported safely. The students insisted on attending the final day of training and, when they faced obstacles with malfunctioning hardware and a messy code, they fixed the project themselves in less than 2 minutes.