In June, Amideast formally inaugurated a new headquarters building for its operations in Jordan. The new facility, located in the fast-growing area of Wadi Abdoun, between East and West Amman, offers a modern, high-tech learning environment that will serve the country’s growing need for a broad range of educational and training services.
The move into larger quarters in Jordan is just one of a number of investments that Amideast has been making during the past two years in order to strengthen the professional quality of its training centers across the region. In 2010, Amideast/UAE added classrooms and a second testing center, enabling it to offer English and Arabic language training and to increase its testing services.
In February 2011, Amideast/Kuwait moved to new and larger offices in the central business district of Sharq, allowing it to expand its scholarship and exchange program administration, testing, English language teaching, and corporate and professional training services.
Twelve months ago, Amideast’s operation in Cairo completed a long-planned move to a new location in the centrally placed neighborhood of Dokki. The modern center offers a larger and better designed space that provides an enhanced learning environment for training.
Although financially challenging, facility upgrades are enabling Amideast to introduce new programs and services. Jordan and Egypt are accommodating an expanded study abroad program for Americans while also piloting Amideast’s Professional Certificate in English Language Teaching (PCELT) program prior to its introduction region-wide. In addition, they are joining our offices in Kuwait, Lebanon, Morocco, and the UAE as training sites for the Citi Foundation-funded Arab Women’s Entrepreneurship Project, soon to enter its second training round, and are two of the five countries that will offer our latest women’s economic empowerment initiative, the Skills for Success: Employability Skills for Women project.
“These efforts are part of a long-range strategy to increase our capacity to serve the educational and training needs in these countries, especially in the areas of workforce development and English language acquisition,” Amideast President and CEO Theodore H. Kattouf noted during the launch of the new Jordan headquarters. “We regard these crucial investments in the future as key to enabling us to accomplish our mission to serve more people, more effectively, as we strive to expand opportunities and change lives for the country’s young people.”
