Innovative Edutainment

The Edutainment Academy is supporting the use of innovative edutainment methods by Egyptian initiatives and participants found it “a unique opportunity”. For 2020, five more initiatives have been offered to join the program.

By Martha Flyvholm Tode & Ahmed Bazzoum 

83 applicants, only 5 seats. “Active Artist”, “Mubtada”, “Sondok Eldonia”, “Didi Asks” and “Rwaya Podcast” were the lucky ones, being selected to participate in this year’s Edutainment Academy. They were all chosen due to their innovative edutainment methods. Throughout 2020, the initiatives will engage in a training program. They will also receive mentorship, technical support and an opportunity to exchange experiences with Danish actors in similar fields.

One of the workshop of this years edutainment academy was given by Mortagal  focusing on how various types of arts, such as storytelling, performing arts and theatre, can become a tool for self-discovery and expressing.

“The Academy was an important experience. It was a unique opportunity in times where opportunities are rare,” says Hagar Al Moghazy from Nut Initiative, as she recalls her experience of attending the program of the Academy in 2019. “Most institutions in Egypt have stopped facilitating long-term capacity building programs for volunteers in the initiatives and workers in the governorates. The few initiatives that offer these sort of programs are hard for volunteers to reach. Because of that, there is a gap in civic work. This is why the Edutainment Academy was really needed.”

DEDI’s Civic Edutainment program was initiated in 2018. The purpose was introducing the concept of edutainment to the field of Civic Education. It began by training Egyptian actors, as well as documenting their efforts. The following year, the first Edutainment Academy kicked off in a collaboration with the Ambassadors for Dialogue Egypt. Also, the Edutainment Manual 1 was published. In the beginning of 2020, Edutainment Manual 2 was launched, presenting three of the methodologies used by the initiatives of the Academy.

Becoming widely popular

“We had little expectations to the program,” says Mohamad Farouk from Mortagal Initiative, another participant of last year’s academy. “But from the very beginning, we found a lot of support from DEDI and the Ambassadors for Dialogue. We are a small initiative. Therefore, program helped us to develop our strategies and become more aware of how to interact with other initiatives. Most of all, it was a great opportunity for networking with initiatives from other governorates, since DEDI provided us with the possibility to work in new governorates such as Luxor, and small villages like Al Kossir.”

Over the last couple of years, edutainment methods have become widely popular among Egyptian initiatives and organizations. They use them as a way to make workshops much more engaging and appealing. Hoping to further develop and innovate the methodology, this year’s Edutainment Academy focuses more on creating opportunities for the Egyptian initiatives to enhance their international network. A part of the training will be provided through a mentorship program, where each of the five selected initiative will be linked to a Danish organisation, initiative or private person working within a similar field.

The five selected initiatives for the Edutainment Academy 2020

Active Artist work on promoting active citizenship through art and targets youth. Their workshops include two components: active citizenship training and a training related to specific kinds of art, such as theater, drawing, and storytelling.  At the end of a workshop they celebrate the participants’ artworks and encourage the participants to continue their work. Read more

Mubtada’s main focus is introducing social sciences and humanities for teenagers. They use alternative learning methodologies,such as DBL (Discussion Based Learning), storytelling, and creative writing. Sessions’ topics are inspired by participants’ realities. The topics are introduced through different social science fields such as History, Political Science, Sociology, Anthropology, etc. Read more

Sondok El-donia is mainly reaching out to teen-agers and aims at reviving the Egyptian heritage by using visual tools like movies and animation. They conduct art projects inspired by the Egyptian heritage in the different governorates. One of their workshops was conducted in Alexandria to document the old architecture. Read more

Didi’s Ask work on enhancing communication through card games. They design card games to facilitate communication and enhance dialogue. They are also working on introducing their methods in other fields. One idea is to use them when fighting constitutional illiteracy of women’s rights among the underprivileged women. Read more

Rwaya Podcast is building psychological resilience and acceptance for underrepresented Egyptian communities by empowering their voices through sharing personal stories. Storytelling is one of the oldest and most efficient ways to attract and engage an audience. They provide storytelling sessions and then podcast these stories on their platform. Read more

Want to read more?

You can find the two manuals for the use of edutainment methods HERE, and you can read more about edutainment HERE.

In this video made by the Ambassador’s for Dialogue, Rana Gaber (Ambassadors for Dialogue’s Project Manager),  Mohamed Sami (Ambassadors for Dialogue Project Coordinator) and Menan Farag (Project Manager at DEDI) share their experiences on the Edutainment Academy 2020.

Photos are taken by Mahmoud Nada