In 2021, to mark the 75th Anniversary of the Fulbright Program, Amideast announced a special edition of the ACAG program. Seven past ACAG recipients from Iraq, Jordan, Libya, Morocco, and Yemen were selected to implement a new round of ACAG projects in diverse areas such as public health, STEM education, community planning, English language teaching, and creative expression through the arts – with a focus on providing this enrichment to underserved communities.

Aptly called Skills Building of Rhamna Youth, the program integrates social innovation and “Learning by Doing” into its approach. 

During its first year, all 218 youth selected to participate—nearly two-thirds of whom were women—had opportunities to receive training in soft and life skills, English and French used in the workplace, digital literacy, and job-search skills. 

Launched in late 2020, the two-year Skills for Tomorrow (SFT) program is equipping 105 girls and boys ages 13–15 with English language, leadership, computer, and soft skills they need to access scholarships and study abroad opportunities, compete in global job markets, and engage in civic life with confidence and self-awareness.    

Since the introduction of the program last March, 120 young Lebanese professionals have already completed Google Career Certificates on Coursera in five critical fields: Project Management, UX Design, IT Support, IT Automation, and Data Analytics. Over 300 more are on their way to certification, enrolled in online courses presented by Google experts that offer upskilling into the new global economy. 

They recently completed the Youth Innovation Program, offered by Amideast in partnership with Jordan’s Ministry of Youth and Inventionland MENA, a Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania-based entity that bills itself as “America’s largest invention factory” and  seeks to be a “catalyst [of] innovative thinking for a sustainable future.” 

Carried out with the support of the Kuwait-based Arab Fund for Social and Economic Development, the program serves as a model that Amideast seeks to offer in other countries across the Arab world. 

Inbound 

This fall, with the support of Amideast, nearly 600 students from the MENA region, including more than 235 from the Fulbright Foreign Student Program, found their way to the United States, excited to return to, what we hope will be, as close as possible to a pre-Covid normal. 

The Training-of-Trainers (TOT) Programme for Life and Employability Skills provided training for 30 ILO trainers from ILO employment centers across Jordan, including in Zaatari and Azraq refugee camps, as well as career guidance counselors from Jordan’s Ministry of Labor and the Vocational Training Corporation.  

This multi-year effort resulted in a March conference and official launch of centers dedicated to supporting people with disabilities at five Egyptian public universities. The role of the new university disability service centers at Ain Shams, Alexandria, Assiut, Cairo, and Mansoura Universities is to ensure that the universities provide equal access to quality education for students with disabilities.

The first event reviewed the effectiveness of virtual learning in English language instruction, based on Amideast’s experience of providing synchronous, asynchronous, and hybrid-model classes for young and adult learners in 11 MENA countries—a timely topic given the urgent shift to e-learning models in response to the COVID pandemic. The presenters—Amideast Regional Director of English Language Programs Helena Simas and Regional Director of Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability, and Learning (MEAL), Dr.

Amideast, the exclusive TOEIC^® test representative in Egypt, faced the challenge of providing language assessments within the new restrictions established by the government in response to the pandemic.