Year 2022-2023
This year has been another fantastic year for Alsama and we are thriving and growing stronger than ever before! We opened our second Shatila institute, added 4 new cricket hubs, expanded our scholarship program internationally, and more. But we’re not stopping there! Thanks to the wonderful support of our donors, we have big visions for next year and an even more ambitious five year plan. If you’re as excited as we are, do consider supporting us as we expand and join the Alsama community.
Alsama Education Institutes
Our big news this year is that we’ve opened our second education institute in Shatila, and eradicated illiteracy amongst our students in the first 3 months! We now have three institutes (two in Shatila and one in Bourj) and are educating over 600 students in Arabic, English and Maths 4 hours per day, five days per week, 44 weeks of the year.
We are proud of our Professional Group of top students from our Shatila and Bourj institutes who have progressed to B1, and some of them B2, English classes. This is an outstanding achievement given that they were illiterate fewer than 3 years ago, and we are excited to continue pushing them to new heights next year.
We expanded our non-core curriculum offering, and have been giving awareness classes to all our students for a minimum of one hour per week. We also introduced Art and Music lessons which have been highly rewarding to teach and greatly enjoyed by our students.
We have continued to teach yoga to all Alsama students and have created training opportunities for the most engaged to become yoga teachers. We now have 8 student yoga teachers working in our schools and will be welcoming even more soon. We are continually grateful to our partners Koun NGO and Tools for Inner Peace for helping us to bring yoga to our community.
We also expanded our range of extra-curricular activities. We trained up our first Chess team who competed in their first tournament against Brummana High School and begun to offer Science classes where students experimented with volcanoes.
For more detailed information, please see our annual reports on the Shatila 1, Shatila 2 and Bourj schools.
Alsama Cricket
Alsama Cricket has been as popular and strong as ever this year. 4 new hubs in Beirut brings us to a total of 13 hubs in Lebanon, through which we support 550 players.
We held 4 very successful summer Cricket Championships – 2 for mixed teams, 1 for boys and 1 for girls – giving our players a chance to shine. We also welcomed a visit from Downe House School in Oman to watch our female teams play.
Another leadership training cycle brought a further 5 students onto the team as Assistant Coaches and upgraded 4 students to the rank of Junior Coach – all of whom now have Red Cross First Aid training.
A new Satellite TV and access to Sky Sports Online is now giving our players the opportunity to watch League Cricket, T20, Test Matches, and of course, The Ashes!
MCC Foundation visit
The MCC Foundation visited for a second time in August 2023 and began teaching the ICC Level 2 Coaching qualification to our coaches – making us the only Cricket centre in the world teaching Level 2 coaching to teenagers. Our coaches look forward to completing the course next year!
Alsama Vocational Training
We continued to expand our Professional Group of students and the career-enhancing curriculum that we have developed for them. The group comprises students who have surpassed B1 level or equivalent in all their core subjects. These high-flying students are given extra teaching in science and a range of skills to prepare them for the workplace such as collaboration, leadership, time management, business writing and creating comprehensive project plans. We are proud to say that we have expanded our Professional Group to 18 students who are all performing fantastically.
Scholarship Fund
Our scholarship program reached new heights this year as we expanded internationally for the first time. In partnership with Al Futtaim Education Foundation, we sent one scholar to secondary school in the United Arab Emirates – a first for us and a first ever in the UAE!
We also sent two more girls to top secondary schools in Lebanon – one to Greenfield and one to Brummana. And of course, this is all only possible thanks to the continued generosity of our friends and donors. Visit our donorbox campaign to know more.
Alsama Studio
The studio has been busy this year and has expanded to employ 50 women, 75% of whom are mothers of our students. They are working to gain financial independence through their employment at the Studio and we are incredibly proud of the work they do.
