BLOM Bank and Kidproof held a joint conference dubbed “Empowering Students with Knowledge” on Wednesday 18 April 2018 at 11:00 am at The Four Seasons Hotel – Beirut to renew their partnership for 5 additional years. The conference was attended by Mr. Saad Azhari, Chairman and General Manager of BLOM Bank; Ms. Darine Masri, Esq., President of Kidproof for the MENA region; Mr. Khaled Halabi, Consumer Insights Manager at Nielson; Mr. Imad Al Ashkar, Head of the Private Education Department at the Ministry of Education and Higher Education, along with numerous school headmasters and teachers as well as media and education personalities.
The conference revolved around three main axes: renewing the 5 year-old partnership between BLOM Bank and Kidproof for 5 additional years, celebrating the impact of the Protect EdTM Program on Lebanese students, and honoring the 130 schools that implement the program.
In a speech made during the conference, Mr. Azhari said: “we have partnered with Kidproof to provide social and moral awareness towards dangers such as violence, crime, discrimination, segregation, and extremism thus turning schools into centers of learning, culture, and advancement. Protect EdTM develops preemptive plans that aim to shield our children and youth from these dangers”.
Ms. Masri, Esq., also made an intervention stating: “our team has provided 679 free training programs to over 17,674 teachers, and yearly follow-up training sessions to Protect EdTM teachers, observation sessions, and model lessons interventions. Family counseling experts and psychotherapists have provided 209 free parent seminars to over 14,215 parents.”
During the conference, Ms. Masri, Esq., made a presentation to highlight the efficiency of Protect EdTM Program, proven by a study entitled “Evaluation of the impact of the Protect EdTM Program on Lebanese students”, conducted by Nielson in 2017. The study has proven that 88% of students confirmed stopping an unhealthy or unsafe behavior following a Protect EdTM lesson while a sweeping 97% of the students feel that they have acquired safety knowledge. Additionally, 95% of students feel that the topics discussed in the Protect EdTM lessons are interesting to them while 75% feel more confident about their overall safety because they know more about how to protect themselves thanks to the Protect EdTM lessons.
Kidproof is a Canadian child safety education provider reaching millions around the world. Kidproof’s Protect EdTM program provides schools with an accurate, structured, and comprehensive child safety, health and well-being curriculum, from Pre-K to grade 12, that contains proven teaching methods written by subject-matter experts, and includes teacher training programs, teacher lessons for every grade level with step by step methodology, student workbooks, parent guidebooks, and parent seminar programs.