As part of the business development center's (BDC) continuous efforts to spread awareness on entrepreneurship and build the NCET teachers' training skills, a Business Game session was held on Saturday November 26^th 2011. The Game was facilitated by 4 KAB Teachers from the NCET with the participation of 20 candidates from the Maharat program.

Maharat is a USAID funded program which  provides youth with training and employment opportunities based on the belief that access to productive work is the best way for youth to realize their aspirations, improve their living conditions, and actively participate in society. The Maharat program enhances economic development by achieving the following objectives:

• Improve the business and personal skills of recent university and college graduates
• Create new jobs for recent university and college graduates
• Unleash youth’s potentials, capabilities, innovation and creativity through promoting entrepreneurial skills among them

The game has been carried out through a programmme known about business KAB, developed by the International Labor Organization ILO, as experimental training in Iraq, Ministry of Labor, Vocational Training Center AL- Waziriya.

The game is an adaptation of a game taken from the web of management consultancy international (blog.mci.edu.au). The game was called "the ball and the tubes" and where the trainees were asked to move a ball through pipes and overcome different types of problems and complications by identifying the appropriate solution.

Trainees learned and applied through the game communication skills, teamwork, problem identification and solution finding.

A KAB ToT workshop was held in Aden Yemen at the Mercure Hotel from January 23 till February 2,  2011.

The ToT was delivered by Mr. Ahmed Abdulbary, KAB Regional Key Facilitator and was co-facilitated by Mr. Wael Ghosn, KAB National Facilitator (Lebanon) under the overall supervision of Rania Bikhazi, KAB International Key Facilitator and Enterprise Development Specialist at the ILO Regional Office for Arab States.

The Workshop included 27 participants of which 13 were women which provided a gender balanced environment. The workshop evaluation showed that the training exceeded the particpants expectations and introduced them to various participatory approach techniques.

Attached are some workshop photos.

21 January-2 February 2012: Riyadh – Saudi Arabia

Under the ILO/RIYADAH project on the introduction of entrepreneurship education in vocational training, and after long negotiations with RIYADAH, a KAB Training of Facilitators Workshop for women was conducted by the ILO-RO SME Specialist and a KAB Regional Key Facilitator. The workshop was held from 21 January to 2 February 2012 at the Al-Anoud Novotel in Riyadh and was attended by 21 Saudi women from the TVTC (1 coordinator, 1 assistant coordinator, 4 training supervisors and 15 teachers). Participants, who are all teachers of either Accounting or Business Management under the TVTC, came from 13 regions in the Kingdom namely: Riyadh, Al Ahssa’a, Al Khurj, Najran, Al Jof, Ha’el, Breida, Al Baha, Arar, Jeddah, Al Ta’ef, Khamis Mshet and Tabuk.

At the request of the Development and Employment Fund in Jordan, a KAB Awareness Workshop was held on Monday 24 October at the DEF offices. The workshop was jointly facilitated by Mr. Samih Jaber, KAB Regional Key Facilitator, Ms. Rania Bikhazi and Ms. Alexandra Irani. The workshop was attended by all department directors to ensure their exposure and understanding of the KAB Programme prior to its implementation. Special interest was depicted from the directors and managers of the loan disbursement and training departments.

A side meeting was held with the Director of DEF, Mr. Omar Omari, to finalize the proposed KAB project document for implementation during 2012-2013. DEF is expected to sign an MOU with the ILO early 2012 to initiate the project.

ILO and the Welfare Association sign a partnership agreement to promote entrepreneurship education in the oPt.

The Welfare Association (WA) signed, on Thursday July 12^th, a partnership agreement with the International Labour Organization (ILO) in its headquarter in Ramallah, in the aim to support the nationalization  of the ILO entrepreneurship education package ‘’ Know About Business ‘’ in the occupied Palestinian territory.

The agreement was signed by the Director General of WA in Palestine, Dr. Tafida Al Jarbawi, and by the ILO country representative in the occupied Palestinian territory, Mr. Mounir Kleibo. The event was attended by officials from the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Higher Education and the Ministry of Labour.

Dr. Al Jarbawi pointed out the importance of youth employment and youth education both representing priority areas of intervention for the WA. A total of USD 17 million was allocated to implement youth employment projects and to support young entrepreneurs in the establishment of their small businesses and thus create job opportunities. The latter contributed to the creation of hundreds of job opportunities for new graduates coming from vocational training and academic backgrounds; in addition, tens of small enterprises were established and have helped entrepreneurs generate income to support their families in different regions.

Dr. Al Jarbawi confirmed the importance of the ILO  initiative to nationalize the "Know About Business" Programme  in the occupied Palestinian territory and the extent of its contribution to support vocational education, develop the entrepreneurial skills of graduates, and strengthen the link between the education system and the labour market.

Mr. Mounir Kleibo thanked the WA for its financial contribution to the KAB project and reiterated ILO’s strong commitment to promote decent and productive work in Palestine while focusing on women and youth.

A press release by the Al Ayyam newspaper can be accessed on the following link: http://www.al-ayyam.com/article.aspx?did=195334&date

As part of the Nationalization of KAB in Palestine, a Training of Facilitators workshop was held in Ramallah from 4-15 September 2011 by the Ministry of Labour and under the supervision of ILO. The TOF was facilitated by five potential NKFs who assisted each other in the delivery as part of their assessment for their successful certification as National Key Facilitators under the monitoring of Mr. Samih Jaber, ILO KAB Regional Facilitator.

Attached are photos from the workshop.

In the first picture:

First Row: Samih Jaber, ILO KAB Regional Facilitator and Rania Bikhazi SME Specialist

Second Row: the 5 potential NKFs- Shehdeh Al Zarou, Khawla Zughaiar Natsheh, Nidal Fahmi Ayesh, Shaheer Rasheed Yacoub, Abdallah Al Selawi.

A KAB Follow-up Workshop was held at the BDC offices in Amman from 8 to 13 October 2011. 24 facilitator attended from NCET the workshop that was delivered by Ms. Dania Achi and Mr. Ahmed Abdulbari, KAB Regional Key Facilitators.

The workshop was held after the end of the first KAB sessions in which 189 students participated at the National Company for Employment and Training. KAB teachers shared delivery experiences and discussed challenges faced during implementation. Ms. Achi and Mr. Abdulbary reviewed the delivery techniques of the KAB teachers and came up with  recommendations to expand KAB's outreach at the NCET.

4-5 September 2012: Amman, Jordan

Under the framework of the ILO/KAB project in Yemen and the decision of the MTEVT to nationalize the KAB programme in Yemen, a 2 day adaptation workshop was facilitated by the ILO-RO SME Specialist and an ILO KAB Regional Key Facilitator in the presence of a Yemeni delegation/programme review committee which included:

• Mr. Abdelqader Al Olabi, Deputy Minister for Curricula & Continuous Education
• Mr. Ali Hamoud Taher, Director of Curricula & Continuous Education
• Mr. Abdelhakim Hashem Ahmad, Supervisor
• Mr. Ayman Ghanem, KAB national facilitator
• Mr. Sami Othman Salam, KAB national facilitator

The objective of the workshop was to customize the generic Arabic KAB version to the socio-economic and cultural context of Yemen based on the comments of the committee. Additions of new topics related to Decent Work, Social Security and Green Enterprises were also made.

The 2 days adaptation workshop was successful, most of the changes requested by the Yemeni review committee were approved by the ILO and it was agreed to introduce the new added topics to the trainers in the up-coming National Key Facilitator workshop (NKF) scheduled to be held sometime in November in Sana’a. As a result of the NKF workshop, a number of potential Yemeni NKFs will be selected to conduct 4 TOFs under the ILO/SMEPS project before the end of the year. This comes as a result of the MTEVT request that needs an additional 100 KAB teachers to complete the nationalization process of the programme.

Under the framework of the ILO-DEF/KAB project in Jordan, a KAB Awareness Workshop was held for the staff of the Development and Employment Fund (DEF) and the Vocational Training Corporation (VTC). The workshop took place on Tuesday 23 October at the Kempinski Hotel in the presence of 55 participants mainly Heads of VTC Directorates, DEF employees, the General Manager of the E-TVET Fund, directors of vocational trainings institutes that have been nominated to participate in the KAB pilot phase, trainers initially nominated by VTC, International Youth Foundation representatives and the media.

The workshop was opened by Mr. Omar Al Omari from DEF and Mr. Hani Khleifat on behalf of the Director General of the VTC, Mr. Majed Al Habashneh. Both opening speeches stressed on the need to promote entrepreneurship education among Jordanian youth, especially those enrolled in vocational institutes, in order to reduce the culture of dependency on public sector employment and contribute to the reduction of unemployment among youth.

Both VTC and DEF expressed their commitment to the project and their readiness to fully engage with the ILO to ensure the success of the KAB pilot phase hoping that the programme could be nationalized at a later stage and taken on board by the Ministry of Education and Higher Education.

A detailed presentation was made by Mr. Samih Jaber, ILO KAB Regional Key Facilitator, on the KAB programme content and implementation modality and experiences/lessons learned from the implementation of the programme in other Arab countries were shared. The afternoon session was dedicated to Q&As and to draw the workplan of the KAB Jordan project.