Director of McGill Middle East Program wins CBIE award
Professor Jim Torczyner, founder and director of McGill University's Middle East Program in Civil Society and Peace Building, has won the Canadian Bureau for International Education's prestigious Award for Innovation in International Education.
The annual award, which will be presented to Torczyner in Ottawa on November 14, recognizes extraordinary contributions of national or international magnitude in the field of international education.
The McGill Middle East Program in Civil Society and Peace Building provides fellowships to Israeli, Palestinian and Jordanian students who earn a master's degree in social work at McGill University and then return to work in the program's five storefront practice centres in the Middle East.
The program comprises a unique regional network of Palestinian, Israeli and Jordanian academic institutions and NGOs: Palestinian universities An Najah and Al Quds, Ben Gurion University and Community Advocacy Israel, the University of Jordan and the Jordan Red Crescent.
Professor Torczyner, a native New Yorker, has been teaching at the McGill School of Social Work since 1973. In 1975, he founded Montreal's Project Genesis, which inspired the MMEP's model of rights-based community practice social work based on the principle that all individuals are rights-holding citizens and, when empowered to access their rights and entitlements, are less likely to turn to violence in the face of ongoing conflict.
Since the MMEP began in 1997, 26 graduates have helped the MMEP's regional partners implement innovative and effective programs in the most disadvantaged neighbourhoods of east Jerusalem, west Jerusalem, Beersheva, Nablus and Amman. The five centres serve more than 75,000 low-income individuals annually.
In December 2003, the Canadian International Development Agency extended its major funding of the MMEP for an additional three years, with the approval of a second and larger grant of $4.4 million toward Phase II of the program.
