Skip Navigation LinksHome :: Speakers :: Speaker Details

Speaker Details

Massa Mufti
Syrian Educationist and Activist
Country: Syria

Biography:

Massa Mufti-Hamwi has accumulated a diversified knowledge and experience in the field of Education, both in formal and non-formal education, across various educational institutions she worked at in the United States, Lebanon and Syria.

Massa is currently an activist working on empowering Syrian Civil Society, and engaged in humanitarian relief work for Syrian refugees with a special focus on Education and human development. She is also a consultant in education management and development, engaged in educational projects and initiatives that adopt interactive learning, citizenship education and life-long learning.

She is a founder of a newly established Syrian Civil Society NGO ABNI (Association for Building and Nurturing Initiatives). She is a founder of a Mobile Learning Initiative SONBOLA addressed for Syrian refugee children in the Bekaa of Lebanon. She was the Chair of the Steering Committee (2011-2012) of MENIT, the GIZ funded initiative of Middle East Network for Innovative Teaching and Learning.

Massa played a founding role from 2007 until 2011 in the MASSAR Project (Massar Discovery Centers included), where she established the Learning department and its in house capacity to develop MASSAR programs and activities.

Status: Confirmed

Papers/Presentations

Innovation in ducation at Time of Conflict

It is no longer a luxury to talk about Innovation for social change. Innovation is not a slogan that we diffuse to send ourselves comforting messages. Innovation is not a simulation of certain learning techniques to effect operational changes. Innovation is not restricted to productivity, markets or economic growth but rather to the development of human capital, namely children and young people. Innovation leads to social change when learners become aware and engaged in that change.

Yet, in looking at human catastrophes happening today in our regions, in countries namely like Syria, or Libya and Egypt, or any other country that has no tolerance for social change, we ought to realize that we’re far from being even on the right track.
At the very same time, we know, we all know that Education is a Right, and not any kind of right. Education inflicts an entire nation by failing to reach its young people and children.
How can innovation become a catalyst and a solution at time of conflict and when Education is failing to assume its mandate?

This paper aims to address Innovation in Education at time of Conflict, and what it takes to reach positive social change.
It will address the subject from three different perspectives:
1) Role of value-based education, formal & non-formal, in effecting social change
2) Role of Science museums and cultural institutions in fostering societal change
3) Role of the society in being an active partner, advocate and agent for social change

In the end, it aims to conclude with an open-ended approach on to how to contextualize social change according to people needs and aspirations.

Download File: