In April I participated in and presented at the AMENDS conference at Stanford University. I spent a week getting to know other delegates from across the United States, North Africa, and the Middle East.

AMENDS 2013
My talk on curriculum development for US students for a deeper understanding of the region went well. Although I’ll never be a charismatic speaker, I was able to get my message across to the audience. It was good practice for future talks.

Look Ma, no podium!
Perhaps the most beneficial aspect of the conference was meeting the other delegates and learning from them. I met a two young women from Afghanistan and heard their take on US involvement there. I learned about Kurdish culture and the northern region of Iraq from three Iraqi Kurdish men.

My activist Afghan friends Nargis and Sabra
I also made a friend, Hamza, who is from Amman. He has been so kind as to let me stay with him and his siblings the first week I am in Jordan!

Me and Hamza in deep discussion of important topics.
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About Laura McAdams
Laura McAdams is a Master’s student at University of Pennsylvania studying International Educational Development. Her experience in the MENA region includes 15 months as a Fulbright student researcher to Fez and Ifrane, Morocco in 2010 and 2011. Her project was interested in understanding the disconnect between the policies of technology usage in education and the reality of how these policies unfold in the classroom. Summer 2012 she returned to the Middle Atlas mountains of Morocco to work with a women’s weaving cooperative. She is excited to learn more about other countries in the MENA region and issues involving education policy and reform, technology usage in curriculums and gender equality in education. One of Laura’s lifelong goals is to one day be able to sit down and leisurely read a newspaper in Arabic.
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