Week of 3/5 Events

Mon 3/5 (4pm) - Presentation on International Women's Day in Tunisia by Ahmed Jaouadi

Tue 3/6 (3pm) - Guest Speaker: Tom Kral on African American Women in Literature

Bio:


Thomas Kral is a retired member of the Senior Foreign Service. During a career of more than 30 years as a Foreign Service Officer, he served in Turkey, Afghanistan, Philippines, Thailand, Russia and Washington DC, primarily as a specialist in English language education. Following his retirement from the State Department, he was the first chief of the Office of Education for the US Agency for International Development in the Philippines. Currently, he is a consultant for English language teaching and management. He is a native of Chicago Illinois and holds a PhD from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Wed 3/7 (4pm) - Poetry Reading and Workshop by poet, vocalist and actress, Gina Loring


Bio:

Gina Loring is an accomplished poet, vocalist, actress, and workshop facilitator. As guest poet of the American Embassy, she has traveled to Kuwait, Russia, West Africa, Denmark, Turkey, Greece, Ireland, and England. She was featured on two seasons of HBO's Def Poetry, as well as on BET's Lyric Cafe, and TVOne’s newest hit show, Verses and Flow. Gina was honored as one of the winners of Queen Latifah's CoverGirl Persona Contest for female lyricsts, and was a featured performer at Eve Ensler's V-Day Atlanta, as well as in Adam Duritz's production at the Ojai Playwrights Festival. With a B.A. from Spelman College, and an M.F.A. From Antioch Unviersity, Gina was a writer-in-residence at Hedgebrook, and is currently a volunteer creative writing teacher with Inside Out Writers, working with incarcerated teens. She is featured on De La Soul's album, “Are you in?” and The Brand New Heavies album “We Won't Stop,” and was a writer/ performer on Norman Lear’s nationwide "Declare Yourself" poetry tour. She lives in Los Angeles, and she believes in mermaids.

Thur 3/8 (3pm) - Tunisian Heritage Exhibition

Fri 3/9 (3pm) - Film Screening: Freedom Riders

Week of 2/20 Events

Mon 2/20 (4pm) - C0nversation Hour & Quiz: President's Day

Tue 2/21 (4pm) - Conversation Hour: Mardi Gras in New Orleans

Wed 2/22 (5pm) - Reading for Kids

Come volunteer your time to pass your knowledge of English and love for reading down to the younger generation!

Thru 2/23 (3pm) - Guest Speaker: Tom Kral on "Teaching English Abroad"

Thomas Kral is the Acting Regional English Language Officer at the U.S. Embassy in Tunis. Please find his bio below:

Thomas Kral is a retired member of the Senior Foreign Service. During a career of more than 30 years as a Foreign Service Officer, he served in Turkey, Afghanistan, Philippines, Thailand, Russia and Washington DC, primarily as a specialist in English language education. Following his retirement from the State Department, he was the first chief of the Office of Education for the US Agency for International Development in the Philippines. Currently, he is a consultant for English language teaching and management. He is a native of Chicago Illinois and holds a PhD from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Fri 2/24 (3pm) - Randa and Yosser's Cooking Club: Crepes!

Week of 2/13 Events

Mon 2/13 (4pm) - AC Volunteers Meeting

Tue 2/14 (4pm) - Valentine's Day Presentation and Valentine Making

Wed 2/15 (5pm) - Reading with Kids

Come volunteer your time to pass your knowledge of English and love for reading down to the younger generation!

Thur 2/16 (2pm) - Tunisian Debates presented by Jamil Choura

Fri 2/17 (4pm) - Moderator of the New Arab Debates, Tim Sebastian will speak about Debate and his project of New Arab Debates in Tunisia

Debate, as a concept, is meant to foster the culture of compromise and accepting the other, and it is an important component in the American and British academic cursus, where students debate in clubs and compete in national and international contests. Many debate programs appeared in the Arab World after the Revolution, and one of them is The New Arab Debates.
NAD was created in 2011 by veteran BBC journalist Tim Sebastian, the star of HARDTalk and founder of BBC Doha Debates. Sebastian served as the BBC correspondent in Eastern Europe, Moscow and Washington DC during the Cold War, and spent the last decade between London and the Middle East. He is also a writer (8 books), a several awards winner, and he interviewed most of the world's leaders during his long career, from Gorbachev to Clinton to Mandela and many others.

Come on Friday the 17th of February to listen to his adventures and learn more about The New Arab Debates!

Special Event

Fri 2/10 (3:30pm) - Manal Omar From the United States Institute of Peace on Women in Transition Societies

Bio:

Manal Omar joined USIP as a program officer for the grant program in August 2008. Currently, she serves as Director of Iraq, Iran, and North Africa Programs under the Center for Post-conflict Peace and Stability Operations. Previously, she was regional program manager for the Middle East for Oxfam - Great Britain, where she responded to humanitarian crises in Palestine and Lebanon. Omar has extensive experience in the Middle East. She worked with Women for Women International as regional coordinator for Afghanistan, Iraq and Sudan. Omar lived in Baghdad from 2003 to 2005 and set up operations in Iraq. She launched her career as a journalist in the Middle East in 1996. UNESCO recruited her to work on one of her first lead assignments in Iraq in 1997-1998. Omar worked more than three years with the World Bank’s development economics group. She has carried out training programs in Yemen, Bahrain, Afghanistan, Sudan, Lebanon, Occupied Palestinian Territories, Kenya and many other countries.
Omar’s activities have been profiled by the Washington Times, the Los Angeles Times, the BBC, NPR, Glamour, the London Times and Newsweek. Her articles and opinion pieces have appeared in the Guardian, the Washington Post, Azizah Magazine and Islamica Magazine.
Omar is on the board of directors of Women Without Borders, an international NGO based in Austria and an active member of the American Muslim community. In 2007, Islamic Magazine named her one of the ten young visionaries shaping Islam in America. She holds an M.A. in Arab studies from Georgetown University and a B.A. in international relations from George Mason University.

Week of 2/6 Events

Mon 2/6 (4pm) - Soliya Connect Program Orientation

Tue 2/7 (4pm) - Presentation on African-American History Month

Wed 2/8 (4pm) - Disucssion Hour: "Obama's World"

Thur 2/9 (2pm) - "Barack Obama and the Paradox of Race in the United States"

This event will be held at the U.S. embassy so, if you wish to come, you must submit your name to the American Corner Coordinator.

Fri 2/10 (3pm) - American Corner Volunteers All Group Meeting and Presentations!

Stay tuned for more information about this meeting.

Week of 1/30 Events

Mon 1/30 (3 pm) - Viewing and Discussion of the State of the Union Address with American Public Affairs Officer, John Berry

Tue 1/31 (4 pm) - Conversation Hour on TED Talk: "Women Entrepreneurs, Example, not Exception"

Wed 2/1 (3 pm) - Presentation on e Library as a research resource by Regional Information Resource Officer Catherine Marsicek

Thur 2/2 (4 pm) - Conversation Hour: All American Muslims (TLC Show)

Fri 2/3 (3 pm) - Film Screening: "The Secret Life of Bees"

Week of 1/23 Events

Mon 1/23 (4pm) - Conversation Hour: American Comedian, Stephen Colbert Running for President!?

Tue 1/24 (4pm) - Guest Speaker: American Street Artist, Jesse Roberts

Wed 1/25 (3pm) - The Honorable Supreme Court Associate Justice Stephen Breyer holding a discussion with Tunsiian on "The Role of a Constitution and the Challenges of Interpreting it for Application in Law" NOTE: THIS EVENT WILL BE HELD AT THE U.S. EMBASSY PLEASE LET ME KNOW IF YOU WANT TO COME AND MEET AT THE AC AT NO LATER THAN 2:15pm.

Bio: Stephen Breyer was born in San Francisco, California, August 15, 1938. He married Joanna Hare in 1967, and has three children - Chloe, Nell, and Michael. He received an A.B. from Stanford University, a B.A. from Magdalen College, Oxford, and an LL.B. from Harvard Law School. He served as a law clerk to Justice Arthur Goldberg of the Supreme Court of the United States during the 1964 Term, as a Special Assistant to the Assistant U.S. Attorney General for Antitrust, 1965–1967, as an Assistant Special Prosecutor of the Watergate Special Prosecution Force, 1973, as Special Counsel of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, 1974–1975, and as Chief Counsel of the committee, 1979–1980. He was an Assistant Professor, Professor of Law, and Lecturer at Harvard Law School, 1967–1994, a Professor at the Harvard University Kennedy School of Government, 1977–1980, and a Visiting Professor at the College of Law, Sydney, Australia and at the University of Rome. From 1980–1990, he served as a Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, and as its Chief Judge, 1990–1994. He also served as a member of the Judicial Conference of the United States, 1990–1994, and of the United States Sentencing Commission, 1985–1989. President Clinton nominated him as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, and he took his seat August 3, 1994.

Thur 1/26 (4pm) - Presentation/Conversation Hour on Tunisian Chechia and Cultural Hertiage

Fri 1/27 (3pm) - Yosser and Randa's Cooking Club!