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Join Meike Ziervogel as she leads the Women in Leadership Luncheon.
From Illiteracy to University in Six Years – How Alsama is Revolutionising Refugee Education
From Illiteracy to University in Six Years – How Alsama is Revolutionising Refugee Education
Alsama Project started as a small empowerment centre in the Shatila refugee camp in Beirut, Lebanon in early 2020 with 40 young teenage girls. These girls were illiterate and engaged to get married. Two months in, they suddenly demanded a proper education, a future, university. So Alsama Project created a curriculum that within 6 years allows illiterate teenagers to make up their 12 lost years of education. We have also co-created with Leicester University and Cambridge Assessment in the UK an exam that proves their university entry capabilities, the G12++. In 2026 the original Alsama girls will be among the first cohort to graduate from Shatila to international universities. Today Alsama Project runs four WASC accredited schools for one thousand out-of school refugee teenagers in Lebanon and is expanding into Syria.
About Meike Ziervogel
About Meike Ziervogel
Meike Ziervogel is a German-British novelist with five novels to her name. She is the founder of an award-winning publishing company in the UK and a fluent Arabic speaker.
Since 2018 she has lived in Lebanon. From 2018 to 2019 she transformed a failing needle art workshop in the Shatila refugee camp into a sustainable independent business, providing a monthly income to 100 refugee women, and empowered the leadership team of five Syrian refugee women to drive the business forward on their own.
In January 2020 she set up Alsama Project with Kadria Hussien, a Syrian refugee living in Shatila. Meike is now the CEO of Alsama Project and has shaped it into one of the most innovative and successful NGOs serving Syrian refugees in the Middle East.
Sponsored by
Sponsored by
Accrediting Commission for Schools
Western Association of Schools and Colleges
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