Whether it’s writing their own stories, illustrating a classmate’s comic or imagining a new character, children thrive on the creativity suggested by books.   
 
I have discovered that grown-ups AND kids love the opportunity to become artists, creating collage dolls – and camels! - in the style of illustrator Susan L. Roth, who illustrated our shared books Hands Around the Library: Protecting Egypt’s Treasured Books, Malala Yousafzai: Warrior with Words  and our newest book Zamzam. There are activity guides and classroom resources for all three books on my website. 

I incorporate these crafts into school visits and professional development activities.  Visits are welcome any time of year, but in Montgomery County, March is Middle Eastern American Heritage Month and April is Arab American Heritage Month, so don’t hesitate to get in touch if you’d like to plan a virtual or in person author visit.  Drop by the Rockville Memorial Library in March and April to enjoy some awesome window displays.
 
The Muslim holy month of Ramadan has just begun, as the new moon is first sighted. The month of fasting, charity and family gatherings will end with the Eid al Fitr celebration on March 19.

The availability of children’s books about Ramadan and Eid has increased significantly in recent years.  Egyptian American author Aya Khalil has just published Ramadan for Everyone. Previously she brought out The Night Before Eid. Two more new titles for the season are Ramadan Rain by Jamilah Thompkins-Bigelow and Aliaa Betawi and The Ramadan Moon by Rayan Khatoun.  Maryland author Hena Khan celebrated Ramadan with Curious George and Night of the Moon. Iranian American artist Rashin Kheiriyeh in Washington, D.C., illustrated Ramadan by Hannah Elliott.

​As Black History Month draws to a close, remember the Children’s Africana Book Awards with award-winning selections about African countries, from picture books to middle grade and young adult.  Hands Around the Library and Zamzam have both been honored with a CABA award for their focus on Egypt. 
 

​The Middle Eastern American Advisory Group in Montgomery County, Maryland, will host a cultural event on March 22 in Rockville, MD – add it to your calendar if you live nearby.  There will be music and tasty treats as well as a discussion of identity and allyship: what makes you proud of your identity and how can we all be allies?

​I will join an authors panel at the State of Maryland Literacy Association Conference in Towson, Maryland, on March 24-25, and I’ll also be visiting the Maryland Library Association Conference in Cambridge, Maryland, on May 6-8. Come let’s have a chat!

I invite all of you to join an international library adventure sponsored by Enoch Pratt Free Library in Baltimore (EPFL).  There will be a virtual conference in November but before that, book exchanges AND discussions about the role of libraries in education, cultural preservation and the use of public spaces.  Read all about it here and consider joining the conversation by writing to Liz Sundermann-Zinger, Executive Director of External Affairs and the Central Library [email protected].
 
Many of the books we read come from our excellent system of public libraries in America but we also have thriving bookstores – especially independent bookstores.   I’ll be talking about a few of the most famous bookstores in the world during an upcoming virtual class offered by Politics and Prose bookstore – A Bookstore Voyage Around the World, Monday afternoons 2-4 pm Eastern from March 2 – 23.   ​​Still time to register – and classes are recorded if you can’t make them all.

“Bookstores are both private and public spaces,
in which we escape the world and also participate in it more fully.”  
Nadia Wassef, Chronicles of a Bookseller
 
Ramadan Kareem to all who celebrate!


​




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“In New York, Grandma reads a story in English. The words go left to right. In Alexandria, Gedetti reads a hadota in Arabic. The words go right to left.”
 
​​SO much to discover when you have grandparents in two countries, two cities, two cultures!  

​Zamzam is a little boy who visits his grandparents in New York City and Alexandria, Egypt, discovering similarities and differences – and the love of knowing they can all be together under the 
same moon in Zamzam's dreams.

As I write to readers in my brand new picture book, Zamzam, families used to grow up and live their whole lives in the same town. Aunts and uncles, grandparents and cousins – everybody knew each other, celebrated holidays together, cried and laughed together.  Then somebody decided to travel to the next town to find a better job. Somebody else flew to a different country to study.  And another family felt unsafe in their town and fled to a safer place. Gradually, parents and grandparents lived in different cities and sometimes different countries. Now families include Grandmas and Grandpas who speak another language, cousins who live many hours away and aunties and uncles who cook food you’ve never heard of - but oh, that food can be so good! Maybe you eat food made with special spices everyday or maybe your holiday table is extra special because of one dish everyone looks forward to.

If you belong to a family with all these different foods and countries and languages, you might celebrate lots of different holidays.  My grandsons have family in the United States, Egypt and India.  The experiences in my new book really happened to either my son or grandson. We all have stories and experiences to share and sometimes all you have to do is ask and listen.
 
Zamzam is illustrated with rich collages of paper and fabric by Susan L. Roth, who also illustrated our earlier books, Hands Around the Library: Protecting Egypt’s Treasured Books and Malala Yousafzai: Warrior with Words.  Susan collects papers all over the world and looks for just the right texture color each time she designs a new illustration. Readers may do the same thing, making collage images of themselves or their families.
 
Please order a copy of Zamzam from Bookshop or your favorite independent bookstore. I’ll be at Politics and Prose in Washington, D.C. for a Meet and Greet on January 26 at 10:30 and send me an email if you’d like me to visit your school at attend an event.

​
 
And every time you look up at the moon, remember people all over the world who are looking up at the same moon.

Additional CABA Honor Picture Books include

•  The Taste of Home, by Aminata Jalloh, illustrated by Pervin Özcan. This time the taste of Sierra Leone is thiakry, a popular snack made of couscous, yogurt, milk and sugar.
• Flipflopi: How a Boat Made from Flip-Flops Is Helping to Save the Ocean, by Linda Ravin Lodding and Dipesh Pabari, illustrated by Michael Machira Mwangi, is the true story of a Kenyan dhow boat. Dipseh Pabari is a waste plastic innovator and one of the founders of the Flipflopi Project.  Linda Lodding calls herself “a cupcake eating, photo-happy, globe-trotting, award-winning children's book author” and Michael Mwangi is a digital artist living in Kenya.  

 

​

• Honor book Flying Up the Mountain by Elizabeth-Irene Baitie is the story of Ato and his friends,  a sequel to last year’s CABA award winner, Crossing the Stream. The four teens compete in missions that teach preservation of nature through photography, rafting through dark caves and hiking up mountains.

​It can be both challenging and rewarding to bring current events into the classroom or around the dinner table. That is perhaps especially true now, when tragic scenes from Gaza and Israel are on television everyday and a class may include children on both sides whose direct family members are affected. There are books and resources to help and guide us all.
 
This may be a perfect time to talk about news literacy – how to tell if what you see and read is accurate and true.  The News Literacy Project is filled with downloadable resources, free webinars and checklists to identify misinformation, vet a news source, or learn to speak up without starting a showdown.

US-based advocacy groups are reporting startling increases in hate crimes and hate speech, against Jews, Arabs and Muslims.  Interestingly, “semitic” actually refers to people who speak a family of languages including both Hebrew and Arabic, but during the nineteenth century antisemitism became linked to specifically to anti-Jewish campaigns.
 
The Southern Poverty Law Center’s Learning for Justice project offers articles and publications about anti-bias education.
 
Unity Productions Foundation has created multiple films about Islamic history and culture, lesson plans, as well as a short film American Muslims: Fact and Fiction. Islamic Networks Group (ING) has teaching resources for shared values among faiths, anti-bullying and racism. ING also offers educational presentations for schools and communities. ADL offers resources to address and challenge antisemitism.
 
Teaching for Change offers anti-bias resources for young children, helping youngsters respect differences and act against bias and unfairness. 
 
Melissa Taylor writes a book blog called Imagination Soup, in which she offers “Books for Hope amid the Israeli-Palestinian conflict” to help young readers envision pathways toward peace. Some of these books feature friendships between a Muslim and a Jewish child.

​More than three million Americans identify as Arab American, according to the Arab American Institute – the largest percentage from Lebanon and Syria but more currently coming from Iraq, Egypt and Somalia.  The term “Arab American” refers to anyone living in the United States with ancestry in any of 22 Arab countries, from North Africa to western Asia.

​April is the month designated to celebrate the accomplishments of Arab Americans and I’m eager to share with you many resources to do that – especially children’s books.  The Arab American National Museum’s annual book awards this year honored Sudanese American Safia Elhillo’s Home Is Not a Country -
Nima wishes she were someone else. She doesn’t feel understood by her mother, who grew up in a different land. She doesn’t feel accepted in her suburban town; yet somehow, she isn’t different enough to belong elsewhere. Her best friend, Haitham, is the only person with whom she can truly be herself. Until she can’t, and suddenly her only refuge is gone. (Penguin Random House)

​The 2014 Arab American Book Award went to A Kid’s Guide to Arab American History: More than 50 Activities by Yvonne Wakim Dennis and Maha Addasi. Activities are grouped by ethnic background – Lebanese, Syrian, Palestinian/Jordanian, Egyptian, Iraqi, Yemeni, Arab Americans from Africa and the Arabian Gulf.

The Arab American National Museum offers a wealth of teaching materials – English-Arabic Storytime, traveling exhibitions, lesson plans, virtual tours, even culture boxes filled with musical instruments and interactive educational treasures.  Contact Dave Serio, Educator and Public Programming Specialist.

​The Middle East Policy Council provides resource guides, country profiles, films, videos and timelines on its TeachMideast website. 

The Middle East Outreach Council honors picture books, youth literature and youth nonfiction with its annual book awards.

The Children’s Africana Book Awards often include winners from Arab countries in North Africa, including Egypt, Algeria, Libya, Tunisia and Morocco.  
My own Hands Around the Library: Protecting Egypt's Treasured Books has been honored with several of these awards. 
Here’s a program produced by the Baltimore Luxor Egypt Sister City Committee that highlights modern day American Egyptian Women of Influence – ballerinas, businesswomen, scientists, entrepreneurs, chefs, authors – even Egyptian American Shereen Ahmed from Maryland who played Eliza in the Broadway touring production of My Fair Lady - ​

The Arab America Foundation, which sponsors annual programs to honor 20 Arab Americans under 20, 30 under 30 and 40 under 40, also organized a "Taking Back Our Narrative" weekend in 2023 at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.

Syrian American artist Helen Zughaib was featured with her dramatic and distinctive paintings of the Syrian migration, as well as her book, Stories My Father Told Me, which she discusses here - on a page that also offers visitors a chance to share their stories.

Finally, to wake everyone up and stir your soul – here is the National Arab Orchestra
​in performance recently as part of the Taking Back Our Narrative celebration. 
Watch here – in just a minute orchestra founder Michael Ibrahim will be using that flute to conduct the orchestra!
                                           Mabrouk (Congratulations!)

 
‘If Grandmommy is upset, soon everybody will be upset. Grandmommy passes on her moods faster than mosquitoes pass on malaria.”
 
We all know how one person’s mood can change the atmosphere for the whole family – and that is true all around the world, including Lagos, Nigeria, the setting for Too Small Tola, by Atinuke, a 2022 Children’s Africana Book Award winner.  These winning stories can introduce young readers to a whole continent of culture, history, flavor and fun.  Keep reading to find out more about this year’s winners, the November 4-5 celebration at the National Museum of African History in Washington, D.C. and more resources to bring Africa into the curriculum.

The Children’s Africana Book Awards (CABA) are presented annually to the authors and illustrators of the best children’s and adult books on Africa published or republished in the U.S. Africa Access and the Outreach Council of the African Studies Association (ASA) created CABA in 1991 to encourage the publication of and use of accurate, balanced children’s materials about Africa. #CABAbooks. The Center for African Studies at Howard University manages the awards, founded by librarian Brenda Randolph. Each of these websites has additional resources, including videos, teaching materials and special events.
 
Here are the 2022 CABA winners and honor books –

BEST BOOKS
​YOUNG CHILDREN
Kwame Nkrumah’s Midnight Speech for Independence
by Useni Eugene Perkins, illus by Laura Freeman
Just Us Books
            “Our independence is meaningless unless it is linked up with the total liberation of Africa,” said Kwame Nkrumah as he marked Ghana’s declaration of independence in 1957. Ghana became the first sub-Saharan African nation to break free from colonial rule. Vibrant, dramatic illustrations complement this brief biography of Nkrumah, culminating in his speech for independence. Very useful backmatter, including a page of Adinkra symbols and their meanings.

​OLDER READERS
Home is Not a Country
by Safia Elhillo
Make Me a World
            Home is Not a Country, by young Sudanese American writer and poet Safia Elhillo, “is a tree of identities, of who we are and who we could be and the dangerous and beautiful place in between,” writes Christopher Myers, the acclaimed author and artist who now leads Make Me a World, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books.  Nima doesn’t feel understood: how universal is that sentiment among young people? This novel in verse introduces us to Nima, her mother from Sudan, her close friend Haitham -
“his polo shirt hangs loose about him
years before the shoulders
To come    & all they’ll have to carry.”
There is travel to and from Sudan including a sister from the world of magical realism who carries the name Nima was supposed to be given – if everything hadn’t gone wrong.
“& i feel my own smallness
As I try to fill her (Mama’s) life’s empty spaces”
Reviewer Lidwien Kapteijns (Wellesley College) calls this beautiful book a “literary gem and a profound, moving and delightful story by an immensely promising author.”

Too Small Tola
by Atinuke, illus by Onyinye Iwu
Candlewick
“Too Small Tola does a wonderful job depicting the lives of this working-class Nigerian family while portraying the drama of daily life through the perspective of a young girl,” writes reviewer Lauren Parnell Marino (University of Wisconsin – Madison). Nigerian-born author Atinuke also wrote the CABA Award-winning Anna Hibiscus series. She is a traditional oral storyteller and has been nominated for the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award in 2023.

​African Proverbs for All Ages
Collected by Johnetta Betsch Cole and Nelda LaTeef, illus by Nelda LaTeef
Roaring Brook Press
   “It has been said that a proverb is a short sentence based on long experience,” writes Johnetta Betsch Cole, former president of both Spelman and Bennett Colleges and director of the National Museum of African Art.  “With proverbs, every conversation is sure to be rich and memorable.” On each page, children choose which of 4 proverbs has been illustrated – and they are invited to illustrate the others and share proverbs from their own background.

Osasu and the Great Wall of the Benin Empire
by Tamkara Olayinka Adun
            The Benin Empire flourished from the 900s until its fall to the force of the British Empire in 1897. “Adun’s retelling…is clear, cogent and creative,” writes reviewer Tolu Akinwole (University of Wisconsin-Madison). It is a “must-read for every child and teen interested in untold histories.” The colorfully illustrated story is told from the point of view of Osasu, a young Edo boy who enjoys the protection of the Great Wall built by his ancestors.

Imbila’s Tale
by Desaray Mnyandu ills by Jessica Gamboa
English-Zulu flip book
Zulunomics, LLC
           All the animals of the savannah are excited to finally get their tails. This African folk tale is told in English and Zulu. The wily little imbila – also known as a hyrax - tries to get his tail without leaving the comfort of his warm rock , only to learn a hard lesson and end up with only a stub of a tail.

Listen, Layla
by Yassmin Abdel-Magied
Random House Australia          
          Modern futures and family culture collide in this story of Layla, a teen born in Sudan growing up in Brisbane, Australia.  “Sudan will always be home for Mama and me, Habiba,” says Layla’s father. “You kids shave to decide on home for yourself.”  Layla is on the verge of losing a travel opportunity for young inventors when her grandmother falls ill and the family immediately returns to Sudan to be with her. Reviewer Lidwien Kapteijns (Wellesley College) notes that the “descriptions of Sudanese cultural norms…will make this a delight both for readers already families with the Sudan and those new to it.”

Sugar Town Queens
by Malla Nunn
Penguin
            A bi-racial girl living in post-apartheid South Africa is determined to unveil the mystery of her white mother’s hidden past – a mother who “totters between reality and the life she lost years earlier…The story takes wings when Amandla discover in her mother’s pocket book a large wad of cash with a strange address located in the mostly white city,” write reviewers Barbara Brown (Boston University) and Rehana Odendaal (University of Pennslvania).  “The novel does an excellent job of conveying the naturalized levels of segregation that continue to permeate space in ‘the new South Africa.’” Middle school girls everywhere will relate to Amandla’s efforts to feel comfortable with herself, in spite of living “in a tin shack because of my skin, my face, my hair…”. Amandla learns that “words have power. String enough words together and you get a story. Sugar Town Queens is a powerful, beautifully written story.

Skin of the Sea
by Natasha Bowen
Random House Books for Young Readers
            This first book of a fantasy series by debut author Natasha Bowen blends “West African history and Yoruban mythology to create a new fairy tale” (New York Times). A young Black mermaid collects souls of those who die at sea but, defying the gods, she saves the life of one living boy who is thrown overboard – and there is the dilemma that drives the story.  Reviewer Patricia Kuntz calls the book “a wonderful read and a good introduction to the Yoruba religion, specific gods and their functions to maintain society.”

Crossing the Stream
by Elizabeth-Irene Baitie
Norton Young Readers
        Twelve-year-old Ato faces many of the same issues in Ghana as his contemporaries in America: disagreements with parents while trying to measure up to their expectations - “He hoped he would make (his mother) proud of him and she would stop feeling sad and scared;” learning how to speak up, cope and succeed. Ato’s grandmother reminds him that “we all have spirits inside. Noisy spirits that should – You’re not good enough…Quietly tell them: Go Away.” Ato’s friend Dzifa counters adult criticism by announcing, “I don’t have a Spirit of Disrespect. I have a Spirit of me.”  Ato frequently compares himself to a falcon, sometimes “spinning helplessly down to earth from the sky.” Reviewer Barbara Lehman (Ohio State University) recommends the novel for its universal appeal while convincingly portraying local culture “through her characters’ speech patterns, descriptions of street and community life.”

These 2022 Children’s Africana Book Award winners will be honored during a family celebration at the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art on November 5 - 

 Who would have guessed that a Muslim Syrian immigrant – originally hired to bring camels to the Southwest United States – would end up surveying the original road for the famous Route 66 to California?

You can learn the story of Hi Jolly – the American mispronunciation of Hadji Ali – in The Great Muslim American Road Trip (now available to stream on PBS). The three part, three-hour film is one of the outstanding new resources to learn and teach about Muslims as an integral part of American history, from its beginnings until today.  It is one of many compelling films written and directed by Alex Kronemer, the award-winning founder and CEO of Unity Productions Foundation. 

From Chicago to Los Angeles, American Muslim pop singer Mona Haydar and her husband Sebastian Robins drive Route 66, stopping to talk with Muslims all along the way. I talked with Alex about the genesis of this fun and very educational film…

​​Ever heard of Omar Ibn Said?  He was a Muslim scholar born in what is now Senegal in West Africa. He was captured, enslaved and brought to Charleston, South Carolina, where he wrote his autobiography in Arabic – and that autobiography is now in the Library of Congress. Thank you to Susan Douglass at the Georgetown University Center for Contemporary Arabic Studies for providing many resources. Listen to the story of Omar Ibn Said here with a children’s picture book version here, and a video from TRT (Turkish Broadcast Service) here.  

Then come up to our own century when the U.S. State Department published a book about Being Muslim in America, in which Eboo Patel writes, “I love America not because I am under the illusion that it perfect, but because it allows me, the child of Muslim immigrants from India to participate in its progress, to carve a place in its promise to play a role in its possibility.

Browse the Bridging Cultures Muslim Journeys Bookshelf for books, films and other resources. Then there is the Middle East Outreach Council , a national network of educators dedicated to disseminating apolitical and nonpartisan information, resources and activities furthering understanding about the Middle East, including the Arab world, Israel, Iran, Turkey, and Afghanistan. MEOC’s target audience is non-specialists at the K-12 and college levels, and includes the annual Middle East Book Award. The Arab American National Museum in Dearborn, Michigan, has its own resources and annual book awards.  (Hands Around the Library: Protecting Egypt’s Treasured Books won both the Middle East Outreach Council and Arab American National Museum awards in 2013.) Salaam Reads is a recent imprint from Simon and Schuster featuring children’s books that "celebrate joy, vibrancy, and variety in stories of Muslim life.”
 
Muslims are woven into the fabric of American life and culture. Their stories can be shared anytime, but especially during Arab American Heritage Month in April or at times of key Muslim holidays, which rotate through the year according to the lunar calendar. Ramadan will begin about March 22, 2023, ending with the Eid al Fitr feast about April 21 and the Eid al Adha feast about June 28.

​If you have other useful sites, resources or experiences about Muslims in America, please share them in the comments – and thank you for joining me on this journey.

 “Having a library where you can go every day is the bright spot of middle school!” said the daughter of fellow author and member of the Children’s Book Guild of Washington, D.C., Laura Gehl.  Libraries are bright spots all around the world, especially in challenging times when librarians and the spaces they manage are called on to do so much more than check out books.  Librarians in the U.S. have been passing out masks and COVID testing kits and reorienting  programming to Zoom.  In Ukraine, the president of the Ukrainian Library Association echoed the cries of protesters in Egypt in 2011, “Libraries are places of safety and freedom…Libraries are power places where people find themselves.”

Libraries continue to be powerful places in America too. The Friends of Libraries Montgomery County (FOLMC - Maryland) has two student members who reflected on their earliest memories of libraries.

​Corinne Nicholls (Senior Student Representative)
My earliest full memory I have of the library was the day I got my first library card. I remember feeling so grown up, and like I had just made the single most important achievement of my life (which the librarian at the Wheaton Library assured me it was). Since I no longer had to check out books with my Mom, I was allowed to check out as many as I wanted, so I originally grabbed 10ish books. After some convincing from the librarian, I cut down to about half of that, but I was still so excited that I had a bag full of library books and a cooler looking library card than my Mom’s. I can attribute my desire to become a librarian in my adult years to my wonderful childhood memories of the library. The library was always a magical experience for me, and after that day, I felt like I had been fully initiated as a member of the coolest place on the planet.

Boshra Nouraie (Junior Student Representative)
​My earliest visits to libraries formed some of my happiest and most significant memories. In elementary school, I was always most excited for Media Center days. I would feel my excitement building walking into my school's library, and I would sit at the edge of my seat waiting for the lesson to finish so I could go browse the aisles and pick up a new book. In my later elementary school years, I formed a special bond with a few of my classmates by reading the series The Mother-Daughter Book Club, by Heather Vogel Frederick. Some of my favorite conversations were those I had about books, and the library inspired me to join my school’s book club and start writing as an outlet that, even until this day, supports my mental and emotional well-being. My mom would take me to the public library during the summer early and let me explore a world outside of my home - world that would uplift me in my toughest times, and I can never thank the library enough for that.

And the value of libraries today – the reason they are worth our tax money?

​Boshra
​I believe libraries are a worthwhile expense because by funding libraries we are supporting mental health resources, safe havens, and fostering educational opportunities. A library is more than just a place to check out books, a library is a place of growth for the members of our community from the minute they walk in, to the minute they walk out. Within books, members of our community can build understanding and find themselves, and experience a sense of hope that will brighten all of our futures. Without the library, I would not know how to cope with obstacles in my life, and I would not know how to help others in the capacity that I now do. Literature and the shared setting of a library inspires connection, connection that we, as a community, need now more than ever. Libraries help us empathize, empower, and educate. Joy and unity in a community can flourish, with the prosperity of our public libraries.

Corinne
I still consider libraries to be the coolest places on the planet, but as I’ve gotten older and more involved in the library community, I’ve realized just how integral they are to our communities. As a high school student, and upcoming college freshman, I can not imagine what my schooling would look like without the library. Students and youth are offered so many resources at the library, including community events, free and accessible WiFi, a quiet spot to study, and physical/electronic learning material. Outside of the world of academia, the library is a community center that allows everyone to come together and enjoy the diverse range of experiences, talents, and knowledge present in our area. Of course, I have to mention the mountains of books, audiobooks, CDs, and more offered at libraries because no library would be complete without them! We live in a time dominated by the exchange of information, so having a physical building that provides the opportunity to learn, to read, and to have fun while doing all of those things is a big blessing.

My favorite thing about libraries is that they are a safe space for so many. Anyone can walk into a library, be greeted by the smiling face or the friendly eyes of a librarian and know they are in an open and safe place and feel an incredible sense of belonging. The world and our communities are changing fast, but libraries are changing right along with it in the best ways. Especially seeing how they remained safe havens and just as resourceful through a global pandemic, I don’t see how our communities would be complete without them! They truly are wonderful and ready to offer magical experiences to anyone who takes advantage of them.

Add your own favorite library stories in the comments below.
​

Note: Rising Juniors in Montgomery County Public Schools are eligible to become student representatives of FOLMC.  Applications here.
Writing resources for young people here.

Twenty years ago, the Bibliotheca Alexandrina (BA) opened its doors in Alexandria, Egypt – honoring the memory of the great ancient library and recapturing its spirit by aspiring
to be

• The world’s window on Egypt
• Egypt’s window on the world
• A leading institution of the digital age
• A center for learning, tolerance, dialogue and understanding.

Paul Lachelier, the founding director of Learning Life, writes that "diplomacy is a social art or ethic especially needed in our divided world." Believing that diplomacy can be practiced by families as well as professionals, Learning Life has launched the Family Diplomacy Initiative - a way to make the most of social media and our increasing hours online. 

​Learning Life, a USA-based educational nonprofit, is now welcoming families worldwide to participate in an international food culture project via Facebook.  This project is the next phase in the development of Learning Life's Family Diplomacy Initiative.  
Founded in 2012, Learning Life aims to spread learning and citizen engagement beyond school walls in innovative ways.  Launched in 2016, FDI is now Learning Life flagship program, and works to connect families worldwide with an eye to developing a family form of citizen diplomacy for a more caring world.  Families are widely valued across cultures, and deeply impacted by world events, from climate change to immigration to virus transmission, yet have little voice, as families, in international affairs.  (Click here for five reasons why families should be involved in diplomacy.)  We believe greater focus in international affairs on the needs, challenges, joys and hopes of families worldwide can help build a more peaceful, caring world. 

​FDI began in summer 2016 with test live internet dialogues between lower-income families in Washington DC, Dakar, Senegal, and Porto de la Libertad, El Salvador.  From 2017 to 2019, we completed a community photo project then a food culture and nutrition project engaging small numbers of lower-income families in the USA, El Salvador, Senegal and Jordan.  In so doing, we leveraged volunteers and the internet to engage families that don't have the luxury to travel abroad.  Since summer 2019, we have more than tripled the number of families worldwide connected to FDI on Facebook as we scale up for our next phase. 

​In this new phase, hundreds of families worldwide have the opportunity to share and learn from each other about their respective food cultures through six questions we will pose from April to October.  The questions, and the months they will be posed, are:

1. April: What does a typical breakfast look like in your family?
2. May: What does a typical dinner look like in your family?
3. July: What is a holiday your family celebrates, and what is a dish your family likes to make or buy for that holiday?
4. August: What is a "comfort food" (food that your family finds comforting to eat) that your family often eats?
5. September: What is a food people eat in your country that you think foreigners may consider odd or unusual?
6. October: What is a food trend happening in your country?  A food trend is any new and popular food, restaurant, or way of eating.​

We ask families in the Facebook group to answer the questions with one or more photos plus a brief explanation of the photo(s) in English or their own language.  A panel of families living in different countries across the world has been selected to answer all six questions to ensure we get a variety of answers reflecting some of the world's diversity of food cultures.  In future years, we plan to pose new questions on new themes that invite families to share and learn more about family life, country cultures, world trends, and international issues.

In addition, Learning Life is posting other content of interest to families to the FDI Facebook Group:

1. Monthly "Eye on the World" posts with cultural content of interest to families
2. Monthly "Internet Resources" sharing free or low-cost online information, education, and work opportunities
3. Bi-weekly profiles of some of our FDI Facebook families participating in the food culture project

Any interested family worldwide with internet access and on Facebook can join FDI and participate in the food culture project.  The project requires one person in the family -- an older child or parent -- to volunteer to represent the family and answer the six questions.  The family representative answers (1) a short survey before and after the project, (2) a question-answer profile + photo of your family to share to our Family Diplomacy Initiative Facebook group, (3) the six food culture questions noted above.  In total, we estimate no more than six hours of your time for the project spread between March and October - or whenever you decide to join. 
​
Families must understand and be comfortable with the fact that what they share will be public, on Facebook, and will be publicized via Learning Life's website and social media pages (primarily Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin).
To join FDI on Facebook click here. 

If you would like to participate in the food culture project, please let me know by connecting with me on Facebook, and messaging me to let me know you are interested, as well as the city and country your family where your family currently lives.

Questions?  Contact me at [email protected].  

Thank you for your interest!

Paul Lachelier, Ph.D.
Founder & Director, Learning Life