Ada established this project with the goal of creating an opportunity for everybody. She believes English is important to learn because it is not only a tool that can open a lot of doors from them, but also their connection with the world and the global audience. Ada also mentioned that “having international volunteers enables us to show the students how youth is striving to help each other and how we can make an impact together”.
The project consists of 3 different groups: social media, communication, and content, each having volunteers from EMIS and from all around the world. Any of these volunteers can choose to become teachers. Every pair of teachers teaches a group of approximately 15 students. The students of each class are being taught by two international volunteers and have an Arabic speaker that helps with communication. Arabic speakers can also teach if they please.
STEPS of Change also has Israeli volunteers. After some interactions with the students in the previous year, Ada found that some of the students may be uncomfortable with the Israeli teachers. For this reason, the registration process today now informs the students that the project includes an initiative in which Palestinians and Israelis volunteer and teach together. The students can choose to support this initiative and to be taught by a pair of Israeli and Palestinian, or if they feel uncomfortable with it, Ada places them in a class with international/Palestinian teachers. To many this is a sensitive issue. Many students are from refugee camps and the only Israelis they interact with are soldiers. Ada didn’t want her project to be seen as normalization of this. She wants it to be seen as humanitarian aid rather than something political.
I also had the chance to talk to two of the volunteers at STEPS of Change, Jorge from Ghana, with a Bachelors in political science, and Zain from Palestine, an 11th grade high school student.
Zain told me that she heard about the project from her friend who studied at EMIS. She now volunteers after school at making content and teaching it to the students. She functions as the communicator of the group as well, as she also speaks Arabic. She joined this project as she believes English is crucial to learn so these students can get their voices heard.
Jorge heard about STEPS of Change in an online international MUN conference that Ada attended in order to introduce them to the project. He joined after he read a lot about conflict situations through his degree. He is passionate about helping people in conflict zones whether it is through educational or humanitarian means. Since he is fluent in English, he did not hesitate to help these students.
This amazing project was established and has succeeded so much thanks to Ada and her belief in the power of youth. She wanted to see how much of an impact they can actually have and has never seen such impact before. She also wanted to take EMIS’ and the Charney Resolution Center’s mission outside of the school. Ada cares about how the conflict affects the individuals involved in it and wants to discuss how this can be improved. She showed that we as individuals can in fact make a change
Please support STEPS of Change by following their Instagram @steps_of_change or check out the website at https://www.stepsofchange.social/
