Learning for the Empowerment and Advancement of Palestinians (LEAP) is an educational empowerment program for Palestinian refugee-youth in Lebanon dedicated to nurturing the intellectual growth and creative curiosity of our students. LEAP encourages youth to become agents of change by supporting them in their educational pursuits during their most formative years.

LEAP aims to illuminate the plight of Palestinian refugees, particularly in Lebanon, through volunteer-run educational programs and scholarship opportunities; simultaneously facilitating a rich cultural exchange, and deepening our understanding of Palestinian refugees. It provides a space in which ideas, goals and aspirations can be nurtured to their full potential.

Since Palestinian refugee-youth in Lebanon will graduate into a society that denies them equal employment opportunities, among many other rights, it is especially important for these students to use every resource possible to build a sustainable future for themselves. Although they face many boundaries, LEAP aims to be the stepping stone between a Palestinian student's dream and his or her future.

LEAP's curriculum and programs are designed with two goals in mind:

(1) To help students prepare for mandatory entrance high school and college examinations, such as the national Brevet exam, the SATs and TOEFL.
(2) To facilitate student scholarships, college-exchange, and entrance opportunities for refugee-students at American universities.

In order for students in Lebanon to be promoted to high school, they must pass the national Brevet examination, which is administered in English. Unfortunately, many Palestinian refugee-youth fail the Brevet exam due to low proficiency in English. LEAP is committed to remedying this impediment and helping students leap forward to high school and beyond, thus improving drop-out rates and increasing opportunities for refugee-youth in Lebanon.

LEAP Projects

Project SHINE

The Summer Help In English (SHINE) Program is a four-week, intensive English program in the Palestinian refugee-camps of Lebanon. LEAP recruits volunteers to teach English, as well as lead recreational activities while living and working in the refugee camps. In turn, our volunteers learn about the plight of Palestinian refugees in general, but particularly in Lebanon. Volunteers and students share a mutual learning and sharing experience. Upon return to their home communities, volunteers are encouraged to raise awareness about the plight of Palestinian refugees.

In addition, SHINE offers students weekly field trips and recreational activities that nurture and foster students' mental, physical, and social growth at a pivotal stage in their lives. Some of these activities include yoga, debke (a Palestinian folkloric dance), theater, social media, film photography, poetry and creative writing.

Project ASPIRE

The After School Program In Remedial English (ASPIRE) is one of LEAP's educational enrichment projects. ASPIRE is an extension to LEAP's SHINE (Summer Help IN English) program and will provide year-long English language courses to increase students' English proficiency.

This year-long remedial program for sixth through ninth graders is divided into Fall and Spring semesters. The Fall semester will run from September to December, while the Spring semester will begin in February and end in May of the academic year. The program aims to complement students' UNRWA education by providing both homework assistance as well as English assistance. Moreover, students will participate in recreational activities to foster their creative curiosity.

Although ASPIRE is a voluntary program, sixth through ninth grade students are highly encouraged to participate and benefit from the program's special tutoring and tailored programming. Ninth grade students are especially encouraged to partake in the program as they will be preparing for the Brevet examination at the end of the school year. This is a challenging period in the life of many ninth grade students as the results of the Brevet examination determine the next step to high school. By doing so, ASPIRE aims to decrease the high school dropout rates among Palestinian refugee students. Increasing English proficiency directly correlates with success on the Brevet examination and will, in turn, raise the rates of high school promotions. Furthermore the element of community building encouraged through shared experience and perseverance amongst students is a focus of ASPIRE. These extracurricular activities will provide a positive space where the pursuit of knowledge and opportunity is not limited to the conventional school times, but rather is encouraged at all times.

Project ASPIRE is led by volunteers, mainly consisting of current college students and young professionals. ASPIRE invites participants from both Lebanese and American universities. Its parent organization LEAP is building partnerships with American and Lebanese universities. Thus, both full year and Fall/Spring semester volunteers are encouraged to apply.

Project RISE

The Recruitment Initiative for Scholarship Enrollment (RISE) RISE is designed to organize a strong team of US-based volunteers to support Palestinian refugee students from Lebanon seeking to study in the United States. RISE works to procure scholarships, provide support to applicants, and to mentor students currently enrolled at colleges and universities throughout the United States.

RISE has three main undertakings: (1) Scholarships, (2) College Applicant Support, and (3) College Mentorship.

Palestinian Refugee-Youth in Lebanon

The Committee on the Rights of the Child reported on the deplorable educational situation for Palestinian children in Lebanon:

"The educational levels of Palestinian [refugee] children is not comparable to that of Lebanese children or even to Palestinian [refugee] children living in neighboring Arab hosting countries. Out of three Palestinian children in Lebanon, aged 10 and above, one child leaves school before finishing primary or intermediate. The dropout rate is 39%, which is [10-fold] higher than for Lebanese students for male and female alike. As for those holding high-school degrees or higher education they are few in numbers..."

LEAP is a grassroots volunteer program established to create a sustainable US-based volunteer program. LEAP aims to raise awareness about the plight of Palestinian refugees--one of the most central issues of the Israel/Palestine conflict-- in general, but particularly the situation in Lebanon, while simultaneously supporting the intellectual growth and creative curiosity of refugee-youth.

LEAP is a program of concerned and conscientious individuals who believe strongly in American core values of peace, freedom, and equality for all people, as well as human rights, international conventions, and humanitarian law.

Although we are fully committed to our program and its mission, our efforts and outcomes are limited. We understand that only drastic legal, civil, and economic reforms on behalf of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon as well as the implementation of UN resolutions regarding refugees will significantly and permanently improve the lives of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon. In the meantime, our program aims to re-inspire and motivate students to empower themselves through education and become their own agents of change, leading them to a future filled with greater possibilities.

Lamis J. Deek, is an Attorney and Human Rights Advocate whose organizing began with a focus on Palestinian issues and later grew to include legal and grassroots work around Arab issues domestically and internationally. Lamis Deek is a long time member of Al-Awda, the Palestine Right to Return Coalition, Co-Founder of the US Palestine Community Network, Member of the Arab Muslim American Federation, Founder of BLS-Muslim Law Students Association, Member of the National Lawyers Guild-N.Y, and has organized Delegations to Palestine including a Lawyers Delegation to witness Military Tribunals and document the plight of Palestinian Political Prisoners in 2007. She currently defends and advocates for the rights of Arab and Muslim Community Members, Activists and Organizers against the renewed climate of Anti-Immigrant racism.

Nada Khader has been the Executive Director of the WESPAC Foundation, a peace and justice action and educational network, since May 2001. WESPAC works on a range of issues dealing with social, economic and racial justice, and is especially concerned about promoting a just resolution to the various conflicts in the Middle East. As WESPAC Foundation Director, she has been invited to represent the progressive community at a variety of colleges, universities and community groups.

Before joining the WESPAC family, she served as a consultant for the United Nations Development Program in the Gaza Strip and also served for two years as a Fulbright Scholar in Tunisia, North Africa. She returned to the United States in 1993 and served an additional two years with AmeriCorps, the Domestic Peace Corps, in both North Carolina and Washington, DC.

Mona Khalidi is the Assistant Dean of Student Affairs and the Assistant Director of Graduate Studies of the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University. She serves on the Board of the Arab American Action Network, a Chicago-based organization that strives to strengthen and empower the Arab immigrant and Arab American community. Moreover, she is also on the Boards of the Arab American National Museum and the Friends of the Institute of Palestine Studies.

Jennifer Loewenstein is a faculty associate in the Middle East Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She is also assistant programming director at the A. E. Havens Center, a division of the Department of Sociology also at the UW-Madison.

She was the founder of the Madison-Rafah Sister City Project, is a freelance journalist and special projects editor at the Mezan Center for Human Rights in Gaza. She was part of the second plenary panel at the United Nations' conference on Palestine convened at the European Parliament in Brussels, Belgium in August 2007, and gave expert witness testimony on Gaza at the 11th Human Rights Council of the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland in June, 2009. In June 2010, Jennifer received the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee's Rachel Corrie Award. Jennifer also serves on the Board of the Carol Chomsky Memorial Fund.

Melek Nimer has been working with Palestinian refugees over the past 20 years in her capacity as a Board Member of Beit Atfal Smoud (National Institution for Social Care and Vocational Training). BAS is the largest non-governmental organization in the Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon. Upon her initiative, an elderly center was opened four years ago in the Bourj el Barajneh camp, and with the help of friends, a second one in the Nahr el Bared camp, which opened immediately after the camp was completely destroyed in 2007. This project has now evolved into an independent NGO, The Social Support Society, which involves a program called Al-Rahelet where children from five different refugee camps across Lebanon are taken on outings to places they wouldn't normally have the opportunity to experience. She is also in the process of establishing a center for children/youth/parents in the outskirts of Beirut for disadvantaged Lebanese, and Palestinian and Iraqi refugee-children.

Melek is also on the Board of the Unite Lebanon Youth Project (ULYP), one of LEAP's partnering organizations, which works with others to contribute towards a more balanced community and aims to relieve humanitarian hardships by providing services that otherwise remain absent to its beneficiaries. UYLP's overall objective is to pioneer a new collective movement in Lebanon which aims to assemble and sustain a task-force of child-advocates from varying cultures and backgrounds aligned together to provide education, empowerment and inclusion opportunities for underserved and underprivileged youth living in Lebanon through the ideals of cooperation, understanding, and mutual respect.

Fatema S. Zohny is the co-Founder and Education Director of the LEAP program. Currently, Fatema is a New York State certified educator in a middle school in Bronx, New York. After graduating from Columbia University with a Bachelor of Arts in both Political Science and Economics, she received her Master of Education. Fatema has a wide range of professional experiences from Wall Street to the United Nations, but she has returned to her passion: education. As an educator, Fatema easily draws parallels between the inner-city schools of New York and the schools of the Palestinian refugee-camps of Lebanon. Fatema's volunteer experience at UNRWA's Education Department in Lebanon has inspired her to return to the refugee camps bringing with her LEAP-a program that aims to educationally empower refugee-students and inform American volunteers of the camp conditions and the plight of refugees.

Maryam Zohny is the co-Founder and Director of the LEAP program. She currently works at the Center for Palestine Studies at Columbia University. She received her Master of International Affairs in 2010 from Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) where she also obtained her Bachelor of Arts in both Political Science and Human Rights from Columbia College.

Maryam worked as a Consultant to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in the Office of Performance Review and worked on women's rights issues in Egypt. She also volunteered with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) in Lebanon. Maryam also serves on the Board of the Carol Chomsky Memorial Fund.

Blogs from LEAP 2011 Summer Volunteers:

Ibrahim B.

Eileen C.

Vidaur D.

Ryan B.

Kira S.

On 1 July 2011, a team of over 26 energetic American volunteers arrived to Lebanon and settled in the Shatila and Burj al Barajneh Palestinian refugee camps ready to plunge into the massive task at hand: to deliver intensive English language instruction to nearly 400 Palestinian refugee-students. No amount of coaching or prepping could have truly prepared these youthful volunteers for the tremendous challenges they were about to face: sweltering heat, claustrophobic living conditions, daily power outages, frequent water shortages, and a group of spirited students who-like children everywhere-were ready to test the patience of even the most serene of teachers.

Despite these challenges, this wonderful group of volunteers rose to the occasion, succeeding beyond our expectations. Instead of spending their summer relaxing or taking paid summer employment, they lived and worked in the camps for the month of July, cheerfully delivering English lessons and extra-curricular activities from 8:30 in the morning until 5 in the evening: frequently working extended hours preparing for lessons and attending required meetings. In addition to morning and afternoon courses (at an 8:1 teacher-student ratio), the volunteers also offered recreational clubs, including photography, social media, filmmaking, theater, debke, creative writing, and even yoga.

On Fridays, the teachers, staff, and students all took a well-deserved break from the oppressive conditions of the camps and headed out on the road in an armada of rented buses. With the joyful sounds of debke music, clapping, and drumming flooding from bus windows, we drove off to an amusement park in Saida, toured the Saida Citadel, and went swimming in the Qasmiyeh River in Tyre (Sur)-our most popular destination.

UNRWA studies show that low performance in English affects students' performance in other subject areas due to students' inability to comprehend exams written in English. Furthermore, students' English scores on the Brevet exam are unquestionably the lowest if compared to other subject-areas.

Therefore, improving students' English-language skills will significantly impact their academic performance. Moreover, higher passing rates will positively impact the drop-out rate, as studies show that students who fail the Brevet exam tend to drop-out of school due to low morale and to avoid repeating a grade. Therefore, too many students are not receiving an education past middle school. LEAP aims to help students leap forward to high school and to higher education.

Not only will LEAP improve students' language skills and exam rates, but also change the mundane routine of camp life in the summer by encouraging physical, social, and mental activities to nurture and foster students' growth at a pivotal, developmental stage in their life.

LEAP was founded on the principle that education is a fundamental human right necessary for the exercise of other human rights. Access to a quality education paves the way for a productive future, often ends generational cycles of poverty, and alleviates socio-economic inequalities by providing greater opportunities for underrepresented groups of people.

According to the United Nations Millennium Development Goals, the secondary goal is Universal Education whereby:

"Every human being should have the opportunity to make a better life for themselves. Unfortunately, too many children in the world today grow up without this chance, because they are denied their basic right to even attend primary school. A sustainable end to world poverty as we know it, as well as the path to peace and security, require that citizens in every country are empowered to make positive choices and provide for themselves and their families."