Sharhabil
Saida 1600
Lebanon
- Youth and education
The mission of Houssam Eddine Hariri High School is to raise open-minded individuals who are capable of adapting to changes, assuming responsibility at the personal, national, and international levels, and showing respect to different learning abilities and cultural backgrounds. The school seeks to equip students with knowledge, education, as well as Arabic and foreign language skills. It also works on enhancing their ability to reason logically and think critically, appreciate and use art, use technology, and understand the relationship between learning at school and its practical application in life, exhibiting positive attitudes and values to influence their local and wider global communities.
1-War and Conflict: This project has been done with grade 10 students for three consecutive years and this year it was done in partnership with a school in Palestine. Through it, students get the chance to read about wars that have taken place in the world, overview its causes and effects and reflect on it. Then, they get the chance to read a lot of valuable diverse primary resources about the 15-year Lebanese civil war, review the “TAEf” Treaty, and propose amendments to it and solutions the current conflicting state.
2- Culture and Identity: Is another project that student work on across various subjects to answer the following question:”How can geographic location shape people’s cultural identity?” Through this project, which was done this year with a partner school in the USA, students develop an in-depth understanding of themselves and learn to interact with people around the world through the partnership they are exposed to with schools from other cultural backgrounds.
3- Women’s Rights: is a project that was done twice. It tackles the changing role of women in the country and the challenges that Arab women face. Students had the chance to meet the female Lebanese activist Linda Mattar and discuss her path of struggle and her dreams for the future to come.
4-Rights of People with special needs: being a school that cherishes inclusion and believes it is a cornerstone for community building, the rights of people with special needs has been a very successful project implemented with grade eight students. Through the project students learn how to respect and interact with people with various physical or mental impairments.
5- MUN program: The Model United Nation is a program that allows students to role-play diplomats or delegates in a conference similar to the United Nations where they research and formulate political positions based on the actual policies of the countries they represent.
6- MAL program: The Modern Arab League program helps engage students from various religious and political backgrounds in Lebanon to discuss various social, political, and economic subjects that are affecting and shaping the Arab World.
7- Adyan/Alwan club: Alwan, the non-formal education club within Adyan, fosters the role of youth as active citizens for peace building in the framework of a comprehensive national belonging and inclusive citizenship.
8-The Big Dance: it is an activity organized annually by the British Council. It is a common chirography that takes place at the same time in Britain and all over the world. It aims at spreading cultural and artistic awareness, tolerance, and acceptance through dancing.
9- Road safety program: it is a non-formal educational club that aims at developing students’ awareness to the dangers of speed, texting and careless driving. It works with students on resolving current nearby modifications to guarantee better road safety standards in our local community and making them responsible drivers in the years to come.
I believe that our school, being an IB school, can be the first piloting school that has all what is needed to be a leading academic institution that would offer training opportunities and facilities to all surrounding schools in formal education themes that correspond to the current challenges. Moreover, our school has an innovative and flexible human resource who is easily capable of receiving necessary relevant training to be a future leading team in implementing multi-cultural themes within the school itself and training other schools to join the practices and the innovation to build a better citizen in a fragmented society. Finally, our school has also been a very active member in various non-formal youth programs that work on developing the youth’s personal, social, and global profile such as MUN, MAL, ADYAN, and ISA program, thus being a leading school in building shared values despite diversification to build a better society.
Having one of our teachers participate in the third Anna lindh convention held in Alexandria last week, has opened our eyes to the common vision that both our school and the ALF have for the years to come. We found out that our major concern as an institution is to raise multicultural students who are capable of building a fixed identity yet capable of interacting with diverse cultures .Thus, empowering them with knowledge, competences, tolerance, communicative skills, problem-solving skills, and most importantly, a high level of responsibility to enhance social, cultural, and economic development is a necessity. Therefore, this vision we adopt is very similar to that of the ALF which can be our means towards achieving our goals, training our teachers, and implementing diverse topics in our school whether in formal academic programs or within non-formal clubs or social networks and training the Lebanese community as well.