Elham Community

Elham Community - Palestine

Excellence in Education - 2011

The Elham Community includes a cohort of seventy-eight educational innovators from Palestinian schools together with a large community of partners who are actively engaged in an inclusive multi-tier multi-sector national and local partnership structure that aims at securing Elham’s deeper and more sustainable rooting and integration into the education and health systems. The Seventy-eight innovative initiatives undertaken by students, teachers, principals and counselors from schools across Palestine - aimed at nurturing students skills, enhancing their learning capacity and their psychosocial well-being; creating an atmosphere to stimulate and foster a range of talents, instilling civic and social values and encouraging responsible behavior - have made a significant contribution towards enhancing the environment of Palestinian schools and student progress on many levels. The community of Elham’s partners has played a pivotal role in promoting and supporting Eham’s innovative initiatives and facilitating the mainstreaming of Elham within the education and health systems. The community of partners includes: The Network of Elham local committees: two hundred field cadres from the educational, health, youth and women (civil society) sectors representing all districts of Palestine, work to cultivate local community ownership of Elham across the country. Elham local Evaluation Committees of over ninety members have done a remarkable job in identifying innovative initiatives from various districts, by conducting local screening and site visits for the hundreds of applicants for Elham Palestine. Elham Partners Council which consists in addition to the Secretary General of the Universal Education Foundation, the ministers of Education, Health, Social Welfare, Youth and Sports, the CEOs of the Welfare Association, Paltel Group, Palestine Investment Fund and the Chairman of the Palestine ICT Association of Companies, provides the national partnership platform for Elham and signifies the fact that government, business, and civil society work hand in hand to transform the Palestinian education system. The council has managed to secure the official endorsement of the prime minister for Elham Palestine as the country’s incubator/umbrella for educational innovation and entrepreneurship. Elham has gained the esteem, respect, and recognition of leading organizations around the world. Selected examples include OECD, WINGS, European Foundations, International Partnership Network, Queen Rania Conference for 6 Synergos Institute, and the European Institute of Education. Elham is the winner of the 2009 Global Best Award for an Innovative Partnership in Learning and Well Being.