Outreach Activities

After the production of the nomination kit and associated application forms, Elham Palestine undertook an extensive nomination and outreach campaign.

Outreach Objectives

Promote the Elham holistic approach: learning for well being;
Make explicit connection between the areas of focus and the Elham guiding principles;
Highlight Elham's inclusive national partnership approach especially with the health sector
Explain rationale, meaning and implications of Elham's localization plan;
Explain eligibility conditions and process
Establish milestones of evaluation process and associated criteria

Major Activities

Dissemination of Nomination Kit

Distribution through government channels with official cover letters of over 20,000 nomination kits reaching all school in the West Bank.

Effective use of media

Over 130 news item, 15 radio talk shows and 10 TV talk shows all highlighting Elham's holistic approach, goals and objectives as well as relevant information for perspective applicants. Newspaper ADs were also published in all newspapers.

Outreach meetings

Around thirty district level and outreach meetings were organized. By the end of the campaign over the Elham team had met with over 95% of all school principles in the West Bank. Participants included school principals; district education directors and heads of departments of school health, counseling, supervision, civil society activists and parents' councils.

Website

The Elham website played a key role in the dissemination of Elham culture and in Elham's outreach campaign. The website was receiving over 1800 visitors a day, a large number for an educational website in a small country like Palestine. The website was updated quite frequently, at least twice a week. All outreach activities were reported on the website.

Moreover, the website created an interactive forum which invited stakeholders from the educational community to voice their opinions, pose their queries and insights on any aspect of the Elham process. The forum received hundreds of messages of support, suggestions, and questions.

The most important aspect of the website was the virtual application platform. Elham set up a user friendly online application facility. This allowed perspective applicants to fill the application and submit it in total privacy it also stimulated teachers who are not quite familiar with the computer or internet to learn, leveraging their children or students' knowledge and skills.

The outputs of the nomination process included a total of 791 applications which is a very large number for a country like Palestine. In fact, applicants covered over 30% of all schools in the west bank.

Following is a statistical report on applicants for the first cycle of Elham Palestine. click here

Indirect outcomes of the outreach process

The outreach meetings offered a wonderful space for engaging directly with educational community in all towns, villages and camps in the west bank. Discussions were candid and totally open and allowed for vigorous and vibrant discussions on the main issues and challenges facing our schools. Teachers and principals as well as parents took this opportunity to tell their stories, share their dreams and voice their concerns.

The process laid the foundation for a relation based on trust, openness and respect. That has been one of Elham's major accomplishments and has characterized the whole Elham process.