By Oumaima Fares (YES 2014-2015, Tunisia, placed with IRIS in Marshalltown, IA)

In 2014, I had the pleasure of becoming an exchange student in the United States with the YES program. This ten-month experience changed my perspective on life and helped me look at the world from a different angle. I realized that there were many opportunities for the youth to make meaningful changes in their countries. When I returned to Tunisia, I began to seek new ways to create positive change at home. 

I joined a few clubs to teach others the skills that I learned from my community service experience in the United States. After starting medical school three years ago, I first heard of a new project idea called Echmoun, a first aid training in the Tunisian education system. If implemented, I knew this training could help save millions of lives. So, I joined the founders and we started building this project from zero. The project’s name, Echmoun, is derived from Eshmun, the name of the Phoenician goddess of healing. We faced several obstacles, but after three years into this project, we have taught more than 770 students from primary school to high school. We also created a small first aid guide that we presented to the Ministry of Education, and they were really impressed with our work. The Ministry of Education even uploaded our guide to their official website!

This year, I was elected as the new president of Echmoun. It was a challenge that I gladly accepted. As president, I wanted to start a new project within Echmoun. Iyed, another YES alumnus working with Echmoun, suggested that we apply for a Projects for All follow-on workshop grant. Since the grant’s theme was about working with people with disabilities, we developed an interesting proposal to teach first aid to children with hearing disabilities through sign language. We applied and, fortunately, we were awarded the grant. That's how our journey with “Echmoun Signs” began. I would describe it as a rollercoaster ride full of obstacles, setbacks, and unexpected events, but a very enjoyable ride as well.

The more we learned about deaf culture in Tunisia, the more we were amazed. The Echmoun team took sign language classes to learn basic communication, and that was very difficult but also fun. Then we planned our first event. We collaborated with a couple of associations, prepared our logistics, and did our rehearsals. On March 5, we held our first event in Tunis. With the help of a sign language interpreter, we taught 16 deaf kids. It was a great first experience and much better than we thought it would be! The children were eager to learn and try the new techniques that we showed them. Next, we planned two more workshops in El Kef and Nebel.

Unfortunately, we had to postpone both events due to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, nothing can bring us down — not even COVID-19. Our love for this project still motivates us. We may have stopped delivering training temporarily, but we’ll be back very soon online and offline. We decided to launch an online awareness campaign through our social media channels throughout April. We will share what we learned about the deaf community in Tunisia around the world. We will also film some of our course content and translate it into sign language with the help of a professional interpreter. All of this content will be uploaded to our YouTube channel to share with schools that teach students with disabilities.

My experience with the YES program changed me — so that I could find ways to change the world. Through Echmoun, we have come up with some innovative ideas. I invite you to follow our journey through one or more of our social media outlets.

Iyed Hamadi (YES 2012-2013, Tunisia, placed with AFS-USA in Fulton, MD)