Trans4m meets Tamer: Community Education for a Free and Safe Palestinian Learning Society
29 November 2018: Marking the International Day of Solidarity with Palestine, Trans4m met with members of the Main Office of Tamer Institute for Community Education in Ramallah to explore future collaboration.
Initiated by Trans4m Fellow Faraj Ghunaim from Ramallah, and convened by the Executive Director of Tamer Institute for Community Education, Renad Qubbaj, Trans4m Co-Founder Alexander Schieffer was invited to join members of the Tamer Team to jointly examine collaborative potential between Tamer and Trans4m. The shared focus was to develop an understanding how Trans4m’s Integral Worlds approach, and in particular Trans4m’s work on integral education and community development, could support Tamer in its own future journey.
Some background on Tamer Institute: Tamer was founded over 30 years ago and is dedicated to contribute to a Free and Safe Palestinian Learning Society. Tamer’s unique focus on children’s literature, youth programs and community engagement is based on its belief that the liberation of society needs to be pursued bottom up, with children, community and education as center pieces for personal and societal development. Over the years, Tamer (meaning: fertiliser) has grown into an inspiring advocate of an an emancipatory use of children’s literature and community youth programs in Palestine, building up also a strong network in the Arab region.
In our initial workshop, the root values of Tamer were revisited, as well as the key motivations of senior team members – as an articulation not only of Tamer’s current foundation but also of its emerging future. Building on that, Alexander Schieffer, together with Faraj Ghunaim, shared some of the most relevant concepts and applications of Trans4m, followed by an initial brainstorming of how the future impact of Tamer can be further strengthened by fully realising the integral potential of Tamer.
For the coming months, Tamer and Trans4m agreed to pursue jointly the following questions: How can the unique approach of Tamer be further evolved in a holistic, integral manner? How can it be shared with an even wider audience, and thereby increase its impact with regards to the much needed transformation in the way learning and education is taking place in Palestine, in the Arab World and in the World? How can Tamer thereby further increase its capacities to foster personal and communal liberation within free and safe learning societies?
This workshop was just the beginning of a conversation.
More to come in 2019.
