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Turning Understanding into Action
Qatar Academy lends support to an educational program in Sri Lanka 01-Sep-10
(DOHA) A small, rented building in the town of Eravur, Batticaloa, Sri Lanka is home to the dream of a man who wanted to give back to his community, an International Baccalaureate (IB) World School where community and service is part and parcel of its curriculum and a team of teachers and students ready to take their Model United Nation (MUN) vision to the next level. This building is the base for Eravur Educational Development Institute, a community-led endeavor supported by Qatar Academy in Doha. Ansar Mohamed, Facilities Administrator at Qatar Academy and originally from Eravur is working closely together with Humanities teacher Cameron Janzen and students at Qatar Academy to offer English language and IT classes to over 200 students ranging from four to sixteen years old. As a native of Eravur, Ansar has remained active in the community. “I have been working with them for the last couple of years doing social work – helping in the hospitals and cleaning the public markets. The main idea for the school came from the community members while I was working with them,” he said. Cameron Janzen and his students, meanwhile, were ready to commit to a “meaningful and long-term engagement” as part of their MUN Action initiatives and in line with the IB Community and Service guide that states: These projects should contribute to lasting improvement, involve an intellectual and emotional commitment and foster kindness, empathy, charity, leadership and tolerance in everyone involved. According to Janzen, “The whole idea is true understanding equals action. So for us to go to an MUN conference and talk about issues of poverty and educational development and then walk away after we talked about it, then we really don’t understand it. So in a way we’re trying to put it into action and make sure we really do understand what it is to help people.” The institute formally opened its doors in April this year to 207 students, a huge turnout compared to the 100 applicants the community leaders initially anticipated. As a result, the school had to split shifts and hire additional instructors for the children. Back in Qatar Academy, increased efforts are being made to meet the needs of the institute. “The leadership group is coming from MUN but it’s a community-wide endeavor. It’s going throughout Qatar Academy from the Primary School to the Senior School,” Janzen noted. In the Primary School, for instance, students made school bags for each student in Eravur and filled it with school supplies, making them connected in a small but concrete way. In the Senior School, events from Sri Lanka Non-Uniform Day to an Eravur Fundraiser Dinner are lined up to raise awareness about Sri Lanka and the institute. Currently, lessons are provided for QR3 a day – a huge relief for the parents of this poor community. “At the moment, the students taking classes are from farming and fishing families,” Ansar shares. However, the project is not only assisting the poor families of the area, but also helping to unite the Hindu and Muslim communities. Teachers at the school are Hindu and the majority of the students are Muslim. Cameron concludes: “Oftentimes in understanding international relations, it’s very easy for people to get overwhelmed with the scope of the problem. The problem is massive so how do we deal with it? Well, how we solve it is one community at a time, one individual at a time. If nothing else, what we’re getting out of the project is, ‘No, we can’t change the world but you know what, we can change a community in Sri Lanka’. And that is a powerful message – that you can make a difference.” FOR FURTHER INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT: ANN ROGERS, PR OFFICER E-MAIL: [email protected]
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12/10/2020 - TIE Customer Support
Hello Joe, The International Educator helps teachers from all over the world to find employment in the countries they want to work in. To learn about our services, please visit the Job Seekers page at: https://www.tieonline.com/tie_services.cfm for more information. Kind Regards, TIE Team
12/03/2020 - Joe Mitchell
Hi, I am interested in teaching English as a foreign language if you have a need for teachers. I live in the United States (Oregon) and have a Bachelor of Science from Portland State University. I traveled to Sri Lanka several years ago and stayed for a time in the town of Kallady, just south of Batticaloa. I have a pretty good understanding of the country’s history past and present as well as its cultural and ethnic divisions. I have long wanted to return to Sri Lanka and do work so I was extremely excited upon discovering this opportunity. Please let me know if you have a need for foreign teachers. I think late Aug / early Sept 2020 would be ideal to start but I could plan as far ahead as 2021. Thanks, Joseph Mitchell
