I used to think that a man should be strong and shouldn’t cry. That he is a ‘hero’. That he shouldn’t shed any tear and that he has a cold heart. 

Hamid Osso, 8th grade

When Samia Habli (Teach For Lebanon) started teaching in Sarafand she knew from personal experience that many young people in Lebanon are affected by gender inequities both inside and outside of school. Samia recognized that this was also true for her students, and so she decided to create spaces, inside and outside of class, for them to explore and transform the gender dynamics that affected their lives. These liberatory spaces provided opportunities for them to collectively develop the awareness and agency they needed to begin creating change within themselves, their relationships and the broader society.

  • Watch this film to see Samia and her students begin to explore and transform oppressive gender dynamics in their school and community:
Supporting students to heal and transform gender dynamic

It shifts the blame from ‘it’s my fault, I’m broken, I need to fix myself’ to ‘No, I’m good enough… and something’s going to need to change’

Samia HABLI

Samia also recognized that as well as gender inequities her students were facing multiple forms of marginalization and discrimination across different lines of identity. Prejudices and bias in the school system and broader society were experienced by her students on a daily basis. This was doing a lot of harm to their sense of identity and self-worth. And so Samia decided to create spaces inside and outside of the classroom for her students to begin developing the awareness and agency they needed to critically understand and overcome the intersectional inequities they and others were facing.

  • Watch this film to see how Samia work with her students to explore intersectional forms of oppression and begin building the agency to start making a change..
Creating healing spaces for students to grow their awareness and agency

‘It’s difficult to accept that the system is rigged against you in so many ways, but then we always like take it a step further. Okay. Now that we know this what are we going to do about it?‘

SAMIA HABLI

*These videos were produced for Teach For All

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