iEARN Pakistan "Connecting youth making a difference"

iEARN Pakistan under Society for International Education is working in close collaboration with iEARN Centers in several countries as well as several other educational organizations on collaborative programs. All these programs are focused at providing unique learning opportunities to students and educators, enabling them to interact with peers and experts globally. Most of these programs involve development and participation of students in Internet Based Collaborative Projects, Curriculum Development and Teacher Training, Students and Teacher Participation in exchange and study programs.

Current and Ongoing Programs:

Global Connection and Exchange: Journalism 2.0
	Global Connections and Exchange (GCE) is an iEARN program expanding its successful high school journalism education program to engage young leaders who are eager to understand and to have a voice in local and national events and communities. iEARN’s GCE will feature: youth journalism certification course, English language learning support; community action projects; professional development and mentoring workshops; summer internships at media outlets; online and print school newspapers; and global classroom-to-classroom teleconferences. Participants will use cutting-edge journalism tools and social media to create, produce, publish and distribute news stories to a national and global audience. iEARN GCE Journalism 2.0 project was launched to increase leadership skills, as well as personal and institutional ties and mutual understanding among students and educators in Ecuador, Pakistan, Tajikistan, and Thailand and their peers in the United States.
American India Foundation-O3: Our Family, Our Neighborhood, Our World
	This project is in collaboration between iEARN Pakistan, American India Foundation and iEARN USA. The objective of this project is to promote cross-cultural understanding. The educators from India and Pakistan work with the theme, ‘Our Family, Neighborhood, Our World’, and learn how to use media arts and creative arts as tools for cross-cultural understanding and collaboration in their classrooms and taking action in their communities for social change.
British Council Connecting Classrooms Online Training Program
	SIE has partnered with the British Council to train teachers to participate in Connecting Classrooms Online projects to train a group of teachers from different schools in Karachi. Teachers were trained in groups of 20 every Friday and Saturday during the month of March and April 2011. The workshops are aimed at training teachers to use the Connecting Classrooms Online Community to discuss curriculum development, potential links with other teachers globally and engage students in online collaborative projects. The participants were also trained to engage their students in Service Learning projects by developing and posting the Social Action Plans on the portal. A total of 175 teachers have been trained under this training program from 91 schools in Karachi. http://schoolsonline.britishcouncil.org/

English ACCESS Microscholarship Program-Karachi

English Access is a two years after school English Language learning program for the students ages 14-18. Society for International Education in collaboration with its partner schools and supported by Office of English Language US Department of State is implementing the Access Program in Karachi. SIE have established 15 Access Centres in different towns of Karachi, equipped with State of the Art English Language teaching program. English Access  is implemented in more then 70 countries around the world, and Karachi is the largest English Access program in the world. There are a total of 1500 underserved students are enrolled in these classes and will complete their program in September 2012.

www.iearnpk.org/accesskhi/index.html

SIE-UNICEF Children's Council:

In continuation with the “Achay Dost”, a project on Child Protection, the Society for International Education has partnered with UNICEF-Sindh and Social Welfare Department, Govt. of Sindh, for establishing and managing the Children’s Council. It is a representative body of all children in Karachi (and other cities of Sindh). The project aims to empower children, with adequate capacity, knowledge, skills with adult facilitation so that they can voice their concerns on issues in conflict with their best interest and attract relative seriousness from the government and non-government decision making circles.

For further details visit www.iearnpk.org/sie/childrencouncil.htm

SIE-British Council's Connecting Classrooms Project:

SIE has partnered with British Council for effectively implementing the Connecting Classroom projects nationwide. This includes training 720 teachers from clusters of schools located in 20 cities around Pakistan. The training module to be delivered by SIE will focus project based learning integrating technology for creative classrooms. SIE facilitators have successfully conducted the Quetta and Pishin trainings from 29th –30th September. Know more about Connecting Classrooms at: http://www.britishcouncil.org/learning-connecting classrooms.htm

Adobe Youth Voices A global philanthropic initiative to empower youth in underserved communities. Demonstrating the power of technology to engage middle- and high-school-age youth, Adobe Youth Voices (AYV) provides breakthrough learning experiences using video, multimedia, digital art, web, animation, and audio tools that enable youth to explore and comment on their world.  AYV is working with iEARN programs in a many countries empowering youth and educators in media learning.

 Youth Exchange and Study  Program-YES    A consortium of partners lead by AYUSA International in cooperation with U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA) to conduct the youth exchange. The consortium includes iEARN, ASSE, ASPECT, Sister Cities International  AMIDEAST, CIEE, PIE , CIE, and YFU to give secondary school students in many countries a new opportunity to study at American high schools and live with American host families for one academic year. 

Past and Completed Programs

Global Connections and Exchange:

Global Connections and Exchange is an iEARN program of Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Egypt, Indonesia, Lebanon, Morocco, Oman, Pakistan, Syria, United States and Uzbekistan. iEARN programs in these participating countries will build and refine its effective professional development program, alumni support infrastructure, in country organizational capacity, and civic education-based, online collaboration projects.

Community CATALYST: Is a collaboration among the iEARN programs in   of Pakistan, Uzbekistan and United States. The program is focused at engaging students in using digital animation for creating disaster preparedness messages.

YVS The Youth Volunteering and Community Service Program is a flagship iEARN-PK Alumni initiative. This program is initiated and  implemented by iEARN-PK alumni. focused at mobilizing youth and schools for engaging in community service activities and projects as part of the ongoing school program and curricular initiative.

BRIDGE-Building Respect Through Internet Dialogue  and Global Education-The BRIDGE Program is a collaborative effort among iEARN programs in 18 countries to promote partnerships between secondary schools in the  Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Kuwait, Morocco, Pakistan, UAE, Oman, Bangladesh, Nepal,  Tunisia, Indonesia, Iraq, Malaysia,, United States, West Bank/Gaza, and Yemen. 

The World Education Corps was a pioneering global transformational program piloted by 10 iEARN countries. The program brings enhanced educational opportunities to developing countries and to underserved schools and communities, worldwide.

CIVICS-Community Voices  Collaboration Solutions A project for the development of ESL/EFL and Civics curricula of United States, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, India, Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, Morocco and Tunisia. CIVICS was launched in Pakistan in 1999.

FTE -Friendship Through Education, Is a consortium of organizations committed to creating opportunities that facilitate interaction between youth worldwide, building and understanding between nations and bond between humanity. FTE was initiated in Pakistan by iEARN-Pakistan in the October 2001.