VALUE STATEMENT
Educating and encouraging underrepresented children to immerse themselves in STEM related activities and become a value add to the technological development of the surrounding community in Jerusalem and Palestine.
Mission
The Engineering For Kids Association seeks to inspire and excite the youth of tomorrow to pursue careers in Science, Technology, Engineering & Math (STEM) and assist them on their path to becoming engineers and scientists. And to increase community access to STEM and build culturally relevant collaboration and problem-solving skills that will support underserved needy youth and communities to succeed in STEM-based fields.
VISION
Engineering Education for every Child by breaking down socio-economic barriers in STEM Education that promotes creativity, critical thinking, problem solving, collaboration, communication, mathematic fundamentals, and scientific curiosity helping children develop a wide range of skills required to succeed in the 21st Century.
PHILOSOPHY
- Everyone Can Do STEM
- Careers of the Future Will Incorporate STEM
- STEM is FUN!!
CORE VALUES
K – Fostering a culture of Kindness
E – Creating Excitement for our programs
L – Loving what we do
V – Valuing our partners
I – Inspiring our children
N – Never forgetting our community!
The Challenges
The demand for technology professionals, especially computer science fields, is predicted to grow at an accelerated rate between now and 2030.
With current trend, only a fraction of girls and women pursue STEM degrees and career paths and we are left with a large gap between supply and demand that will impact our ability to innovate and solve today’s challenges at scale.
In Palestine, as part of a study conducted by researcher Dr. Mahmoud Al-Jaafari, a Professor of Economics at Al-Quds University in Abu Dies, showed that:
“The number of students enrolled in the Tawjihi scientific stream declined.
In 2016/2017, the Literary stream was 80% and 18% in the Scientific stream, whereas in the seventies of the last century the proportion of students in the Scientific stream were 45% compared to 55% in the Literary stream.”
“He said: This decline in percentages in scientific stream reflects the erosion of the ability of young Palestinians from the trend towards applied sciences.”
Maan News 2017