Oct 27

Oct 27 What is Amideast Education Abroad’s Learning for Practitioners (LfP) Program Initiative?

Amideast has spent years evangelizing for what the countries we call home offer to U.S. education abroad. The countries of North Africa, southwest Asia, and the Gulf have something for everyone, and everything that we send U.S. students out in the rest of the world to experience can and should be lived and learned—needs to be lived and learned — in our communities.

That we must work so hard to promote this idea and likewise the safety and viability of our program locations speaks volumes about some long-held problematic aspects of the education abroad field. The longer it takes to change those—really change them—the more committed we are to being integral to affecting that positive change. As educators, we’re all responsible for doing so, and we’re doing our part. Are you doing yours? What do you need to better do yours?

Learning for Practitioners (LfP) is one way we go about it, trying to help others navigate their own path. We’ve built a big tent for practitioners in the areas and fields aligned with LfP program themes, which have included arts and handicrafts, nursing and medicine, vocational and technical education, heritage conservation, state and citizen, law, business and entrepreneurship, and more.

Who is a practitioner?

Are you out in the world practicing a profession? Building your credentials and gaining experiences to advance in your profession? Transitioning between areas of professional practice or hoping to? Trying to engage more fully in praxis as related to your professional practice? If you answered yes to any of these questions, then we may have an LfP program for you.

Our tent includes the widest possible variety of educators, including staff, faculty, and administrators, primary school through university. It includes the broadest range of professionals and advanced or lifelong learners, including health care providers, artists, those in the legal profession, civil servants, and anyone with a career-relevant interest in a program theme. While undergraduate students are generally ineligible for LfP programs, these programs are open to alumni of other Amideast Education Abroad programs, as well as some advanced learners who are still in the process of earning bachelor’s degrees. Questions about eligibility for any LfP program can be directed to us at any time: edabroad@amideast.org.

What will you do on an LfP program?

Amideast is unique among U.S. study abroad providers in that its work is not primarily education abroad. Amideast is, in fact, an international non-profit organization engaged in education and training primarily in its home communities outside the U.S….that’s developed and maintained a growing portfolio of study abroad programs for U.S. students for more than 20 years. All the relationships that make its work on the ground happen—75 years’ worth of partnerships and initiatives spanning our countries’ sectors—go into those education abroad programs for U.S. students, and now into learning opportunities for practitioners.

LfP participants come away having engaged in an immersive consideration of a theme of critical importance in our contemporary communities, interacted with peers, actors, and experts, participated in site visits and cultural activities, and reflected on their learning through the facilitation of Amideast staff. Participants leave with knowledge gained, having discussed how they might incorporate what they’ve learned into their professional and community practices back home.