Egypt Country Report - Middle East

 

2024

عُقدت ورشة عمل تدريبية  للتطوير المهني للمربيين وذلك لمدة ثلاثة أيام في مدينة المنيا في الفترة  من 27 إلى 29 يناير 2024حيث  شارك فيها 45 مربيا  متحمسًا من جميع أنحاء مصر.  كان من بين المشاركينمربيين  من ثلاث مدارس محلية في القاهرة والمنيا، وقادة من المنظمات غير الحكومية في محافظات القاهرة والمنيا وأسوان وممثلين من الأمانة العامة للمدارس الكاثوليكية، يمثلون 135 مدرسة من الإسكندرية إلى أسوان  لقد كانت ثلاثة أيام مبهجة ومثمرة مليئة بالرؤى العميقة والسعادة والانتعاش الشخصي وتعزيز الالتزام بوضع القيم في قلب الحياة اليومية.

 

27-29 January 2024

Living Values Education 'Train the Educator' Course in Minya

A three-day Train-the-Educators professional development workshop was held in Minya, in Upper Egypt, from 27-29 January 2024 for 45 enthusiastic educators from all over the country. Participants included teachers from three local schools in Cairo and Minya, leaders from NGOs in Cairo, Minya and Aswan governorates and the general Secretary of the Catholic Schools Association, representing 135 schools from Alexandria to Aswan. It was a joyful and productive three days full of profound insights, happiness, personal refreshment and a strengthened commitment to keeping values at the heart of life.

The event was organised by the ALIVE Associate in Egypt, the Jesuits’ and Brothers’ Association for Development (or JBA), and held at their comfortable premises in Minya. A secular organisation that carries out a range of development and humanitarian activities around Egypt, JBA has been the ALIVE Associate in the country since 2007 and has carried out a wide range of LVE activities over the past seventeen years. It has built up a team of around 15 volunteers who have assisted in running workshops all over the country for schools, NGOs and other entities and who also very ably worked with Chris Drake, ALIVE President, in running some of the TTE sessions. The three-day workshop was a great success and it was followed by a cultural day in which participants went on a group visit to a nearby important archaeological site. This helped achieve another aim of the event: to build and solidify a strong network of educators from different organisations across the country for mutual support, sharing and exchanging of experiences and resources.

Participant evaluation was very positive with Creating a Values-Based Learning Atmosphere being the most popular session, closely followed by values activities and the opportunity for interaction amongst participants. A WhatsApp group of all participants quickly became very active and a useful forum for sharing plans and follow-up. Experienced LVE volunteers took up the responsibility to mentor a participant who is newer to LVE to provide advice and technical support and this has been useful for the six organisations which have already started using the LVE Approach after the workshop and for others who are waiting for the beginning of the new school year to implement LVE in their classes.

         

Participant comments included the following:

“I need to say thank you for the love, the energy of freedom and the space to share. I am back and examining the values I live by and I was able to put my hands on the things that were holding me back. I started to work on them, so I became calmer and felt a sense of peace and acceptance more than before and now I know how to move with flexibility and contemplation.”

“I very much enjoyed every detail of the training: the organisation, preparation and all the participants’ presence. Really thank you all. Thank you for the values that brought us together.”

“I was very happy with you and benefited. Thank you for all of your hard work and your ability to help people to live values more.”

“I was truly honoured to attend the training with all these beautiful people. Thank you very much for all the people who have a beautiful soul.”

“Thank you to all the team work. Thank you for your interest in all the details of the meeting. Thank you because your presence was comfortable and helped create an atmosphere of love. It is truly one of the most different meetings I have ever had.”

“In fact, it was one of the most beautiful training sessions I attended, and I got to know all the loving people.”

“I really need to say thank you for your love and participation during the training. I lived in an atmosphere of love, respect and shared responsibility. It made a real difference in my personality, and the first thing I kept doing was to be happy despite all the circumstances, even sharing with people what happened to me, and this made a bigger difference with me. Now, I live the values, not just know about them.”

You can view this video report on our YouTube channel here.

 

 

 

2021

SALAM, Strong And Loving Active Minds: Bringing LVE to Libya

Training for Civil Organisation Staff on Social Cohesion and Life Skills for Youth

The Libyan population has been badly affected by conflict and political instability with armed violence, economic crisis and deterioration of public service blighting the daily life of many, causing great psychosocial distress and affecting the community as a whole. Wishing to tackle the situation, Handicap International - Humanity and Inclusion Libya ("HIL") sought to support selected civil society organisations and offer training on developing positive social values to help strengthen individual and community resilience and cohesiveness. In alignment with UNDP's Stabilization Facility for Libya - Stronger for Libya and aiming, amongst other things, to help further promote local peacebuilding and recovery dynamics, HIL established the SALAM project. An abbreviation for Strong And Loving Active Minds, SALAM focused on training for civil organisation staff to help enable them implement activities to boost youth social cohesion and life skills.

 

The ALIVE Associate in Egypt, the Jesuits and Brothers' Association for Development successfully submitted a proposal to implement the SALAM project using the Living Values Education Approach and materials. With a focus on the development of a culture of peace, cooperation and responsibility, in particular amongst youth, the project was successfully completed between June and September 2021 with the five-day training workshop and three days of supervision meetings all being held online.

 

Thirteen participants from two civil society organisations in Libya took part in the training which had the general objective of providing trainees with the capacity to implement activities that would allow male and female youth between 16 and 26 years' old in their communities to:

1. Reflect on and gain insights into their values and attitudes;

2. Develop awareness of the importance of social cohesion, life skills and values such as cooperation, respect, tolerance, responsibility, peace, love and honesty;

3. Learn about and practise active listening, empathy, positive thinking, communication, pedagogical and social skills that support peace, equality, dignity, belonging and well-being for all; and

4. Think of ways to develop and transfer these values and skills in their daily lives.
   
   

                     

 

Overcoming the challenges of conducting the entire project online, a fundamental ethos of the training was to let the participants experience and live in a values-based atmosphere throughout. The training included sessions on:

1. Visualising a world characterised by values such as peace, happiness and integrity,

2. Reflecting on values, their meaning and importance

3. Relaxation exercises conducive to mental, psychological and spiritual clarity

4. Activities involving the experience and creative expression of peace, respect, love, honesty, responsibility and cooperation

5. Social life and cohesion skills, including for conflict resolution, positive communication and social solidarity within a diverse world

6. Role play activities that support the development of empathy and understanding of the consequences of choices
   
   

            

 

The training was followed by three separate days of follow-up supervision meetings to enhance the participants' capacities to design and lead sessions with youth in their communities. The follow-up sessions included sharing by participants on how they had started putting into practice what they had learned and started conducting sessions with youth. An important learning from this was the need to deepen the understanding of a value and that it's better to spend time in a workshop going into the depth of a few values rather than covering a greater number of values on a superficial level only. Also helpful was the identification, when working with youth in a workshop, of the following implementation strategy and sequence of activities:

1. Begin with reflecting on and understanding the value and what it means at the personal level;

2. Go into greater depth with the value, thinking about how we feel it and how present it is in our actions and experience;

3. Consider how to practise the value in daily life and how to make choices built on it;

4. Discuss the obstacles to living by the value and how to deal with them.
   
   

          

 

A pack of training materials in Arabic was put together by Magdi Asham Henein, the Formation Director of the Jesuits and Brothers' Association for Development, who conducted all the sessions as team leader with the support of other accredited and experienced LVE trainers.

 

 

2019

Living Values Education activities - Egypt 2019

Jesuits' and Brothers Association

1. Training for Shemoaa Association

Date: 15 & 17 and 22 & 24 August 2019

Entity: Shemoaa Association for Sustainable Development in Minia

Place: Tahaa village / Bani Mahdi village

Number of participants: 30 youth (boys & girls)

Who: A group of volunteering youth from the village working with children

Days: 4 days in total - two days for each of two groups. 15 and 17 August and 22 and 24 August 2019

Values: Peace, Respect and Love.

About the training:

Two groups, each of 15 young women and men with middle-level education, participated in two-day Living Values Education workshops, one workshop for each group. They were volunteers working with village children. They aimed to develop the children's awareness and improve their behaviour by adopting values practices.

The LVE training team presented LVE to the participants and then made groups for participants to introduce each other and also to discover and express their own values. During the two days' training, many activities were presented to deepen the participants' understanding and experience of the values covered. At the end of the second day trainees were divided into two groups to design and present different activities for values with the observation and comments of the training team.

Participants' evaluation and comments:

In their feedback, participants expressed their happiness with the training as they experienced a values-based environment and said that the activities touched their heart. In general they expressed that through the training they have learned about values through practical activities.

Trainers' feedback:

We felt that we should pay more attention to design the activities to be more relevant to the participants' culture.

      

2. Ana El Masry Association for Development at Qena governorate

Date: 4 - 6 October 2019

Place: Qena governorate 4-6 October 2019

Number of participants: 50 young men and women

Who: Supervisors for activities - nurseries 

Days: 3 days

Values: Peace, Respect and Love.

About the training:

"We lived in a perfect environment through these three days and I don't know whether I can live that afterwards or not. But I decided to try." 

With these words, a trainee from the group expressed at the end of the training his desire to create a better world for children, while also acknowledging how difficult that is. 

As always, we began with the educators' awareness and belief about their own values. They reflect on how they live with the values and how they are rooted in their life. They expressed their desire to practise what they believe and how difficult it is now with the world's materialistic way of thinking and lack of values. 

          

 

3. Education training for 60 government school educators 

Date: 13 - 15 December 2019

Entity: Jesuits' and Brothers Association

Place: Menya governorate

Number: 60 participants

Who: teachers and supervisors of school ship

Days: 3 days

Values: Respect, Responsibility and Love.

About the training:

In a project titled "An effective student in the education process", led by Jesuits and Brothers Association, 60 educators from Governmental schools attended a 3-day LVE training. The aim was to develop the educators' capacities in values education. It was the first time to work with the governmental schools as it not easy to integrate any activities that are not part of the school curriculum.

The head of the education directorate in Menya attended the training and was impressed with the activities. He asked us to spread this training to many schools and at the education department level.

The result of the training was very inspiring as the educators were very enthusiastic to apply the activities within the school day. They declared that LVE touched them personally and they are very optimistic about the expected results on the students' behaviour.

At the end of the training every participant presented a wish for the world's peace through a symbol of the earth and they wrote their wish on a dove of peace

On following up with the trainees after the training, we found that they began immediately to implement the activities during the school day.

Participants' evaluation and comments:

• They said that they will use stories and games in their work with students.
• As teachers, values education could support and improve their interaction with students
• "We have the values already but we gained the skills of how to use different activities to help children to be aware of them and to live them"
• "These activities help us to change the student's behaviour"
• "During the training days, we lived a peaceful time and we intend to deliver this to our students"

Trainers' feedback:

It was a great time with high participation from all and our team recommended following up on the implementation of activities in their schools.

            

4. Values Festival 

Date: 13 July 2019

Number: 100 youth

Who: Young men and women

Days: 1 day.

About the training:

In cooperation with the Ministry of Youth, Minya directorate, we held a one day-values festival for young women and men. The aim of the festival was to activate and support value awareness and self-responsibility. The participants expressed that it gave them time to reflect on the meaning of the values in their life and to what extent they live by them. 

     

 

 

2018

Making Values the Root of Education and Social Transformation

The Jesuits and Brothers Association in Minia, the ALIVE Associate in Egypt, sent in the below LVE report for the period of January 2016 through August 2017. In addition to sharing their activities, they reflect on some of the factors in the change process since the revolution of 2013.

Introduction

"Since the Egyptian revolution in 2013, Egyptian society has been trying to reform itself to get out of the state of apathy and create real participation in the change process. This has affected the overall context of relationships and the value system. The program has tried to play an active role in rooting the positive values through institutions working in the field of education and development in an attempt to make a social equation between the desire for democratic and social transformation and lack of values.

The community suffered from two contradictions: intense desire for freedom and extreme fear of freedom, the desire to practice values and to negate all ethical frameworks. Freedom does not come once but should be learned, thus, the Living Values Education Team of the Jesuits and Brothers Association has tried to spread values through a series of workshops adopted by educational and developmental institutions to instill and root human values.

In general, we can say that there was a need and a desire from these institutions to instill the instilling of values in young people in general and consequently adopt these institutions to practice values at the personal and institutional levels.

In Egypt, the program has received many training applications from various developmental and educational institutions. The LVE program team in Egypt has responded to these requests through a series of trainings in partnership with many of these institutions to achieve the value equation in the local communities in which these institutions operate.

The activities of the program:

1. The program implemented six training days for the LVE volunteer team to activate the team's ability to implement the program and include new activities.

2. Hold a meeting twice a month for the team to follow up, monitor and discuss the new activities in the program and coordinate the trainings.

3. We have recruited two new volunteers as program trainers.
   
   

Trainings with the different institutions:

The program has implemented eight trainings for educators from different institutions (two to three days for each training) with 234 trainees.

Participants in the final evaluation of the program expressed the need of the community to spread the values and the impact on the program at the personal level, which they said was an opportunity to express something deep inside them; the trainings succeeded in creating an emotional state which helped trainees absorb the reality of values.

Some of the participants' comments:

'This training was an opportunity to review our personal values in the context we live in.'

'The program is good, but it`s hard to live according to it because of the society`s changing values.'

'We lived a value dream for three days; we wish this dream could continue.'

'We already have these values deep inside us but we must dig in ourselves to find it.'

'Values are like plants; they should be nurtured so as to bear fruit and see the fruits of our lives.'

'Practicing values builds us as humans before it builds the community.'

 

On the other side, the program organized a festival for children in Aswan for 150 children belonging to 'Access to drinking water for Elnaseria' project. This festival was implemented with the participation of the project`s facilitators."

Egypt Living Values Team

2015

Three Workshops in Cairo Create a Group of LVE Co-Trainers

 

A group of 20 educators participated in a Living Values Education Train-the-Trainer workshop over a long weekend in Cairo in February, hosted by the Egyptian Society for Life Skills and Self-Development in Heliopolis. Most of these participants had already completed a LVE foundation workshop the previous year facilitated by members of the Jesuit Brothers from Minya, Upper Egypt. Helen Sayers, the President of the ALIVE Associate in Oman, came to facilitate the training,  an Associate of ALIVE in Oman, came to facilitate the training, joined by Duaa Mansour, Focal Point for LVE in Kuwait and an art teacher at Kuwait American School.

 

As a refresher, the facilitators worked through a typical LVE foundation workshop, making sure that trainees thoroughly understood the methodology and the process of integrating values in education, placing emphasis on 'exploring, expressing and experiencing' values. The rest of the three-day workshop was dedicated to exploring the qualities and skills of a trainer, and preparing presentations and workshop sessions. Trainees had a practical opportunity to co-facilitate a half-day introductory workshop for an invited group of educators and other interested individuals.

Helen was invited back in June for a three-day intensive follow-up capacity-building LVE Workshop leading to 13 educators being awarded with the certificate of 'LVE Co-trainer'. The LVE team in Cairo are now busy coordinating a variety of activities at schools and in the local community with the aim of helping to reawaken and sustain the elevated values of their great nation.

 

2010

Jesuits ' and Brothers Association - Minia - Egypt

Living values Report during the period from October 2009 to August 2010

Introduction:

Since we became the representatives of the program in Egypt, we began to form a group of volunteers working in the education area as well as those working in the social development area, to be able to cover all training requests from diffident organizations. And we began to think about the criteria to spread the program in the country. Till now there are many training requests for the program as we will explain in details below.

Activities implemented during the report period:

Forming a group of trainers:

• We formed a group of 17 persons who are interested in the program and have the ability to be trainers
  
  
• We developed a training program to increase their capacity in the nature of the program beside the training skills (T.O.T) program. This program included 10 different topics such as (The psychology of the children - philosophy of the program - moral development - active listening skills - teaching methods, etc).
  
  
• We held three training workshops till now, after some filtering process, now we end up with 14 trainers in our team.

 

Team members:

Jobs	Names
Program manager at Jesuits' and brothers' association	Magdi Asham
Executive manager at bambino gesso association	Atef Azat
Rehabilitation center manager at Jesuits' and brothers' association	Nabil Aziz
Responsible about Jesuits' consulting &training center	Sohear Nageebi
	Samer Mories
Coordinator at I.S.P.L.E.Y project	Azza Samier
Coordinator at	Haidy Samir
Coordinator at not alone program at Coptic orphans	Magdy Noshy
English teacher at school belong to government	Manal Lotfy
Super visor at A.C.E.E.B project	Ayman Yaakob
Coordinator at badayat association	Hanaa Aziz
Human development trainer	Ahmed Nabil
Volunteer	Eriny Samir
Coordinator at A.C.E.E.B	Bemen Fayk
Literacy classes gamble	Christine Agaybee
Secretary of formation sector at	Christine William

 

• In addition to giving trainings, we divided the Team into two committees (Media committee - Documentation committee).
• Regular meetings are held for different purposes:
• To coordinate the workshops for other organizations.
• To continue the training program for the team.
• To follow up the work of the committees.
  
  

Holding different trainings for the educators in different organizations:

After advertising about the program we got many training requests to train the educators who are working with children in different projects and programs as follows:

• An Egyptian American association named "Coptic orphans" that has a program named "not alone", asked our team to train their volunteers who are working with orphans with single  Parents, currently concentrating on the value of peace (Table 1).
  
  
• There are other organizations and schools who asked to take the training for their employees (Table 2).

 

Training held for Coptic Orphans association:

Number of volunteers	Place	Date
45 persons	Beani Sweaf	18/12/2009
40 persons	El Mansora	18/12/2009
65 persons	El Mynia	25/12/2009
Divided volunteer to two groups each group is 40 person	Cairo	25.26/12/2009
55 persons	Sohage	1/1/2010
35 persons	Aswan	15/1/2010
30 persons	Alexandria	22/1/2010

Training held for schools and other organizations

Number of volunteers	Place	Date
11 teachers	Primary school in Manshiet El Dahab	19-20/2/2010
25 persons	Key of life association at Arment Luxor	16-17/4/2010
30 persons	Day care center at Jesuits' and brothers' association	25-26/4/2010
16 persons	shabab misr association	31/5 to 2/6/2010
35 persons	Youth leadership program at Jesuits' and brothers' association	8-9/7/2010
43 persons	I.S.P.L.E.Y project at care organization	19-20/7/2010
6 persons	Typical union of health and population	24-27

• Also we did activates with children
• rehabilitation center  belong to Jesuits' and brothers' association working with disabilities two members of the team organizing regular meeting every fourth Monday of the month which every meeting is talking about values , gives the children assignments and follow up these all hole the month.
• Pedayat association working with (neglectful children ) at 23/7/2010 honesty value age between 13 years old to 15 years old.

 

Future plan

• We are preparing to hold a workshop in Cairo for the educators from nearly 20 different private schools and organizations to widen the use of the program. That will be after the beginning of the school year.
• We also intend to continue our training program for our staff (the volunteer's trainers) and to add new members.

 

2007 June

The first Living Values Educational Program (LVEP) Educators' Training that took place in Egypt was held in Alexandria in January 2000, hosted by the Jesuit Fathers. Since then, the program's activities in Egypt have steadily increased.

Each year, a number of Educators Trainings take place in schools and educational Institutes upon their request. Follow-up meetings also take place for Educators that apply the living values activities with children.

In 2003, a comprehensive Train-the-Trainer (TTT) program has taken place with 15 carefully selected educators and educational psychologists. The aim was to prepare a team of LVEP trainers in Egypt in order to accommodate the unfulfilled schools requests for LVEP training. The TTT was sponsored by the Jesuits and Brothers Association for Development in El-Menia. Since then, those trainers co-trained in many of the trainings that took place. The Jesuit and Brothers Association has also committed itself to host a once-a-year Educators training in which Educators from several Educational Institutes can attend.

From July 2006 till now, several educators training have taken place for the staff of some schools as well as development associations working in the field of education. Educators from Sadat Language School, Notre Dame Schools across Egypt, Al-Hoda Language School, schools of Upper Egypt Association, Coptic of Evangelican Organization for Social Services, Lekaa Association, Key of Life Association, Nahdet Misr Association, and from 10 public schools in 5 villages of El-Menia within the "Upgrading Training and Educational Skills" of the Jesuit and Brothers Association, were all trained to use the program with children of different age groups.

This year, LVEP was presented in the Seventh Annual Educational Conference of the Advance Society that took place in the British School in Cairo in March 2007. The Conference was organized by the Learning Resource Center and sponsored by several bodies including the British Council and the Cairo Office of UNESCO. The Conference focused on effective educational tools and techniques for children with learning disabilities. LVEP methodology will be again presented in iEarn Conference in July 2007.

LVEP is now seen in Egypt as a valuable program. This is resulting in more trainings being requested and more trainers preparing themselves to fulfill the increasing demand.

Number of Sites Using Living Values Education
Total number of sites 19

Breakdown and description:

• Sadat Language School
• Al-Hoda Language School
• Learning Resource Center for people who has learning difficulties, developmental disorder and behavior problem.
• The American University in Cairo Summer School - Cairo
• Jesuit school in El-Menia - El-Menia
• Saint Joseph School in El-Minia
• Upper Egypt Association Schools
• 10 schools in 5 villages around El-Menia, as part of a project for the development of educational and learning skills for communities in remote villages which is being implemented by the Jesuits and Brothers Association for Development and funded by the Swiss Fund in Egypt
• Shooting Club children activities
• Enlightenment Foundation children activities
  

Impact

One teacher in El-Menia explained how one day she had to leave her class of primary level children unattended for sometime; as she was walking back to the class, she expected to hear a lot of noise but to her surprise there was no sound coming from the class. When she reached the class, she found that one of the students was standing and conducting a guided relaxation/focusing exercise for the rest of the class while all the other students were quiet and calm and enjoying the experience.

Another teacher stated that children in her school quickly learned the conflict resolution steps and are now applying them very effectively; she has noticed a reduction in level of conflicts among students.

One teacher stated that a girl in her class who used to have the highest record of absence in previous years, recorded the highest rate of attendance after applying the living values activities with the children in school. Another student was on the verge of leaving the school due to his poor educational performance, became attentive in class and scored better academic results in school after applying the living values program.

Another student stole 5 Egyptian pounds from the bag of her teacher. Next day, the teacher applied a living values lesson on honesty. After the class, the teacher found the student left the 5 Egyptian pounds beside her bag.

Several teachers have stated that LVEP has helped them personally to discover their own inner values and self-worth and to have better relationships with the children as well as with their colleagues.