The learning journey spans a period of 3 years – during which the students go through and complete 6 stations: personal competencies, career path, debating, citizenship, and social entrepreneurship (1 & 2). The training for each of the stations is delivered through 21 training hours (seven 3-hour sessions that convene once every two weeks).
Year 1
Personal competencies:
Self-exploration, self-discovery, self-awareness, and self-management. Defining personal values and enhancing social skills and social intelligence. Deeper understanding of community interrelations and the relationship with the others.
Student work/project: personal diary or blog.
Career Path:
Students get a realistic handle on what it is going to take to pursue and achieve career and professional goals. Students map the various employment sectors of interest including the business and legal environments. Participants explore local and international post graduate tracks, scholarships and student exchange opportunities.
Student work/project: Career plan and CV.
Year 2
Debating:
Participants learn how to develop arguments and counter arguments, how to process questions and answers, and how to organize and present their ideas clearly. Other important skills that are introduced in this station are public speaking, note taking, evidence support, team work and anticipation. Through debating, participants get the chance to practice important skills including team building, leadership, communication, listening, analysis, organizing and documenting (learning and sharing through dialogue). Participants have to do a lot of field work, desk research, interviews and meetings in order to complete the work.
Student work/project: A debating event.
Citizenship:
Increased awareness of intricate social and vital environmental issues and disadvantaged and underprivileged groups and communities. Nurturing respect for all and understanding rights and responsibilities in the context of society. Building motivation to connect with community stakeholders and like-minded groups and influencers in order to speak up and get involved in advocacy campaigns that influence positive change.
Student work/project: Advocacy group.
Year 3
Social Entrepreneurship:
This station is the final destination of the learning journey and is delivered over 2 semesters. At this point, participants get the chance to reflect on the knowledge and skills they accumulated through their learning journey, and gain new competencies on how to do community needs assessment and design a community initiative (social action project). They learn how to design and conduct tools like focus groups, structured interviews, literature review, as well as how to do problem tree analysis, and how to do screening and selection for community needs. Furthermore, students learn how to do budgeting and fundraising and develop a monitoring and evaluation framework. This is a very important station as it emphasizes and intersects with the community work in Birzeit University.
Student work/project: social action project (SAP)
