PREP Mid-Year

General Assistance – 179 asylum seekers received general education assistance.

Individualized Assistance - 224 asylum seekers received personalized higher education assistance from case workers helping them in all aspects of accessing higher education.

Application & Registration - Thanks to our dedicated team of volunteers 39 asylum seekers received assistance regarding university application and class registration. Application assistance includes Coursera, University of the People (business and computer science), and IDC (government, business, psychology).

Tutoring - 61 students in higher education were matched with volunteer tutors on subjects such as statistics, computer science, English composition and more.

TOEFL & GED - We began a 6 week TOEFL course for students who are in process of applying for English speaking university programs. This month we celebrated the graduation from the second GED section of our GED course which focused on writing skills. The students have remarkably improved their writing skills and wrote beautiful, moving essays titled- ‘Why I Left Africa’. They received graduation certificates and celebrated with friends and ARDC staff.

Scholarship Assistance - 44 students have received scholarship assistance and 99% of these have successfully been awarded some type of monetary assistance. Within the new cohort of scholarship recipients, approximately 10% of scholarship are women. ARDC scholarship prioritized women in the selection process, and recipients received roughly 9,500 NIS each.

Youth - We conducted 2 workshops for 12th grade students aimed at preparing them for life after graduation. They learned about personal financial management, how to read a paycheck, and other important skills for college and career readiness. The students were engaged and asked many questions.

Vocational – 84 students participated in skills based workshops. We had 3 hairdressing and business vocational courses for women in collaboration with the Eritrean Women’s Center and Microfy consisting of one course for beginners and another for advanced students- graduates from the previous course. In these courses, we focused on traditional hairstyles taught by 3 professional hairstylists from the Eritrean community, and the entire course is being held in Tigrinya. The class will combine hairdressing studies along with business training so the women will maximize learning with knowledge in finance and entrepreneurship. The women were very excited and enthusiastic for class.

We also held a series of successful agriculture vocational workshops which drew students coming from as far as Holot. The workshops also drew in Israelis and internationals creating an environment of shared learning and community.