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Israel's Early Childhood Development Education Program
Israel’s Agency for International Development Cooperation (MASHAV) recently completed training forty Ghanaian teachers in an early childhood development course. Thanks to the Embassy of Israel, Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA) and the Ghana Education Service (GES), over a hundred teachers have now been trained to teach preschool and kindergarten in Ghana.

The extensive program lasted for two weeks and focused on early childhood education. Teachers left the program with a higher knowledge of children’s learning principles, the needs of young children, what curriculum to teach, and appropriate games. By giving special attention to young students, Ghana hopes to build a better foundation for its future workforce and overall societal well being.

This partnership between Israel and Ghana will likely produce hundreds more early education teachers, something for which Ghana is desperate. Not only will more teachers be trained in Israel, but those who completed the program will go on to spread their new knowledge to other teachers in Ghana, thus creating a web of well-educated preschool and kindergarten teachers throughout the country.

The Early Childhood Development Education program is now in its fourth year in Kumasi and its second year in Accra. Both countries expect to have a long relationship as they continue to see positive results in Ghana’s early education system.

– Mary Penn

Source: GBN
Photo: Flickr

Heartbeat_Israel_Palestine_opt
Heartbeat, a non-profit organization which unites Palestinian and Israeli youth musicians, will visit the State Department this week for a musical performance and discussion. Aaron Shneyer leads the group and is a former Fulbright-mtvU Scholar, and has continued to lead Heartbeat since his grant ended in 2008.

The group, based in Jerusalem, is meant to “build trust among Israeli and Palestinian youth through the power of music in what they call a sustained music-based dialogue.” The group practices and plays songs in French, Hebrew, Arabic, and English. The group has an EP available for download, and they blend both modern and classic instruments in their music which features jazz, hip hop, folk, and rock.

The Fulbright-mtvU program provides U.S. scholars with a year grant to spend going abroad and working with music as a way of encouraging a global understanding and respect. Although the partnership between the Fulbright program and mtvU is a public-private one, these collaborations provide U.S. students with unique opportunities around the world.

Since its inception, the Fulbright Program has provided funding for over 318,000 scholars to “study, teach, conduct research, exchange ideas, and contribute to finding solutions to shared international concerns.”

Christina Kindlon

Source: U.S. State Department
Photo: Art Fuse