“This pandemic only came to challenge our resilience as humans”- Omar Bayan, Education coordinator with LOST
As the CoVID-19 outbreak was announced in early March, 2020 in Lebanon, general mobilization was declared by the Lebanese government with all the education activities and institutions suspended. Having just started, the BLN students stopped attending classes. LOST was involved through awareness trainings to communities on addressing myths and how to promote preventative measures. LOST was also involved in widespread sterilization through the local municipalities at the onset. The education team at LOST however never ceased to find a way to resume the education programme and have these children continue with some form of learning and engagement.
In Bednayel, following up with the students remotely in the French courses was particularly easier than for other centres and surrounding areas as more students were familiar with the platform. The Akelius platform and e-learning tool for foreign language, enabled a quick continuation of learning through remote options introducing a whole new level of engagement and success!
The Education team in LOST Bednayel center created accounts for all the students enrolled in the BLN programme in this center to start the e-learning process. After communicating the new process with the families over the phone, most of the parents confirmed that they had smart phones and assured the team that their children would be involved in this learning modality for some time during the day. Additionally, the parents expressed their commitment to ensure their children continued with learning especially during the course of the critical quarantine.
One such student is Ali Abdullah Al-Mustafa, a 13-year-old student from Bednayel 004 IS (informal settlement). He used to find it difficult to learn French once he had enrolled however day by day, Ali started to get more familiar with Akelius platform and started to enjoy learning this new language. When asked, Ali mentioned that he was motivated to learn because while learning, he was also playing and enjoying his time as well and it did not feel tedious or boring as with other classes. Ali was keen to follow up with the teacher through online meetings which was an interesting modality of learning. He would ask his teachers about the link to the explanatory video to follow the steps and go apply them on the platform and was becoming familiar with a new set of jargon and words not used before. Even though the videos are uploaded on Tuesday and Thursdays only, Ali tries to access the platform on a daily basis which his parents have supported. This situation applies to many of Ali’s colleagues from the Bednayel Center.
Although online courses can be more challenging especially in times like CoVID-19 pandemic outbreak, such platforms are indispensable to allow teachers to resume teaching and engaging student learning from their homes. The Akelius programme does not only teach students words and numbers but also entertains and engages them through motivation to pursue their learning despite these challenging circumstances.
