What's "New"?

Here’s a quick look at the work of three potential Ashoka Israel fellows I’ve been researching. One of the things I really appreciate about Ashoka is that they’re serious in their search for “new solutions to old social problems.” Someone asked me the other day if new solutions are actually possible. Hasn’t everything already been tried or at least thought of? Not really. In fact, not even close.

Abbas Abbas: AlManarah (http://www.almanarah.org/eng/)

A blind Arab from Nazareth, Abbas is focused on transforming the position of the blind – and more generally Arabs with disabilities – in both Israeli and Arab society. His organization, AlManarah (the Lighthouse), tackles this onerous task with a comprehensive three-pronged approach: awareness, education, empowerment. On the awareness front, AlManarah conducts workshops for parents and professionals. It uses the Israeli court system (filing appeals and lawsuits) to advocate on behalf of the blind. Awareness and education of course go hand in hand, and the organization disseminates educational materials to both the blind and the general public. It recruits volunteers to serve as personal guidance and reading assistants for Arab blind pupils and university students. Its “audio library” project is a new initiative for the establishment of an Arab Blind library, providing learning, scientific and artistic materials, some of which are recorded, and other printed in Braille, and in a large print.

Shai Reshef: University of the People (http://www.uopeople.org/)

An Israeli entrepreneur and businessman, Reshef has been the prime mover of several large online and educational ventures. He is now chairman of Cramster.com, an online study community offering homework help to college students. He is also the founder and president of the University of the People, potentially the first free online university. It is this latest incarnation that alerted Ashoka to Shai. The University of the People’s website claims its place as “the world’s first tuition-free, online academic institution dedicated to the global advancement and democratization of higher education. The high-quality, low-cost and global pedagogical model embraces the worldwide presence of the Internet and dropping technology costs to bring collegiate level studies to even the poorest and most remote places on earth.” So far, the venture has the backing of the UN (http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=30848&Cr=ict&Cr1).

Yehudit Carmon: Read and Play, Ltd. (http://www.readandplay.co.il/indexE.htm)

Through her research and passions, Dr. Yehudit Carmon, an expert on literacy education for young children and a musician herself, realized that the decades of conventional wisdom concerning reading acquisition was wrong. Instead, she has pioneered a new approach to teaching literacy to children, called Toy-Musical-Notes (TMN), as well as a company devoted to its development and dissemination, Read and Play, Ltd. The method is simple, based on 8 notes, and is accompanied by both human and virtual (computer) instruction and time spent playing instruments. According to the website, “Read and Play's vision is to change the existing method of learning to read throughout the world, so that children will be assisted by music as an intermediate language on their way to acquiring verbal reading…We believe that music is a beloved international language breaking all barriers. It enriches many basic skills and faculties in addition to reading capabilities: social and emotional skills, cognitive processes, mathematical cognition, musicality, verbal abilities, etc. We believe that with the assistance of music, children can grow to love and enjoy reading from a young age.