In Qatar Tribune, January 9, 2017

By Malek Helali
Doha: ROTA continues to reach out to migrant workers by providing them education. The second semester of ROTA’s Adult English Literacy (RAEL) programme is expected to start following the tutors’ training programme that will be held at Hamad Bin Khalifa University’s Student Centre on January 28.

RAEL, which is one of the most innovative projects of ROTA benefiting migrant workers in Qatar, aims to fill the communication gap between labourers and their employers to enhance the workplace experience and broaden the opportunities for unskilled workers.
The number of tutors, who are aged between 16 and 40 years, has increased to 500 from 15 over the years. About 2,000 workers have so far benefited from the programme.

“We have focal points in each Qatar Foundation university to recruit student volunteers and those focal points are usually able to speak a language that is native to migrant workers,” Rasmeya al Jamali, ROTA’s community development specialist, said.
Regarding the development of the programme, Jamali said,”The programme started in 2009 seeking to teach migrant workers English to enhance their quality of life in Qatar. In the beginning, we only had basic and intermediate levels and the curriculum was not related to labourers’ professional fields. Later, Dr Silvia Pessoa from Carnegie Mellon University and I conducted a case study and decided to expand the curriculum to four levels and make it more relevant to the workers’careers and work fields.”
Jamali said the programme used to target workers in Education City only but now we also have employees from other organisations in Qatar like Ashghal and Diyar.

“They are offered certificates at the end of the programme to enhance their CVs. Some of them say that after attending the programme, they can even teach their children and help them in their basic school work. Some others were pantry staff or cleaners and got promoted to the rank of supervisors after the programme,” Jamali added.

Jamali said participants find that the tutoring experience changes them and establishes a connection between them and workers in their institutions.”Even I have changed, thanks to this programme. Also, some students benefit from the experience academically as it fulfils their universities’ required service learning hours. We started the same programme in Arabic two years ago. It has been challenging as we have been finding difficulties recruiting volunteers apart from students at the Academic Bridge Programme and Awsaj Academy. The training for the first semester of the Arabic programme will start on February 4,” Jamali said.

The literacy programmes target labourers who do not possess any Arabic or English speaking skills.