THE AMAL FOUNDATION
Make a Difference Today
JOIN THE TEAM
Apply here!
OUR STORY
Behind the Scenes
The Amal Foundation was created by Yara Samad, the granddaughter of the now-deceased Amal Hemayssi. Even though Amal died before Yara was born, she was known amongst her family and friends for truly caring about the young children who she taught in school. As a mother of four, she dedicated herself to making sure her children grew up loved and appreciated, but also cared for the children in poverty in her home country, Lebanon. Every week, she gave her check to the families of the children she worked with to help them afford food and rent. The word "amal" means hope in Arabic, which is what Amal meant to all the children and families she helped selflessly. Our goal is to re-instill this hope in the children learning through our program. Amal dedicated her life to helping these children, which is why we would like to dedicate this foundation to her.
OUR GOAL
Working Towards a Better Tomorrow
This combination of life lessons and skillsets taught by mentors and more hands-on, entrepreneurial projects will provide the perfect curriculum to launch these students into a path where they can create a better life for themselves and elevate themselves out of poverty. We want to show these kids that they can meet their full potential and create the change within Lebanon that their leaders failed to provide.
“Everything that is done in the world is done by hope”
Martin Luther
A MESSAGE FROM OUR FOUNDER
When I was eleven, my family took me to the low-income part of Lebanon, my home country. We brought food, clothing, and money to give to the people living there. I befriended a girl my age called Adilah and this experience changed my entire outlook on life. I began to volunteer and help out more over summers but still did not feel like I was doing enough to impact lives. Most of these organizations gave food and clothing away, but I wanted to carry on my grandmother's legacy and help educate Lebanon's future leaders. My experience inspired me to start the Amal Foundation, focusing on the education of Lebanese youth living under the poverty line in the areas of design, engineering, and entrepreneurship.
WHO WE ARE
Our Roots
The Amal Foundation is a program that aims to educate children living under the poverty line internationally. Many of these students can’t afford to go to school, therefore we run workshops and classes that teach our students a skill set that is related to design, engineering, or entrepreneurship. We are partnering up with several programs and organizations to help us achieve our goal, such as Beyond The Five, Code For Tomorrow, The Big Sisters Project, and more. They are also offered a scholarship at a local design thinking maker space through the program where they can learn about design, engineering, and entrepreneurship by participating in project-based activities. We will be working with multiple Lebanese NGO’s and the board of education to create online workshops and fund additional toolkits, laptops, sewing kits/machines, and tools for students to use. Lastly, we are partnering up with Project Invent to create an incubator where students can start their own companies and fly into the U.S. to pitch to investors and get funding.
OUR PROJECTS
PARTNERSHIP WITH LEBANON'S BOARD OF EDUCATION
We have partnered up with Lebanon's Board of Education as well as many Lebanese NGO's and design thinking maker spaces in order to reach the most students possible. We will be creating an online curriculum, hosting zoom workshops with students, raising funding and material donations, and more.
PARTNERSHIP WITH PROJECT INVENT
Our partnership with Project Invent will provide students in Lebanon with a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to create their own startups. Each team will create a physical product that uses technology in order to solve a problem in their communities. They will then be flown into the U.S. in order to pitch their products to a panel of investors in hopes of receiving funding!
PARTNERSHIPS WITH EDUCATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS
We are partnering with Code For Tomorrow, The Big Sisters Project, and multiple other educational organizations in order to provide additional mentors and curriculum for our students to learn with! These high schoolers are excellent role models and teachers for our students to learn from.
