The Office of Social Responsibility is beginning its Adult Education Programming for the Fall semester starting Sept. 19 with in-person classes, such as English in the Workplace, IELTS preparation courses and online Arabic classes. With over 200 contracted and domestic worker colleagues, as well as community members registered for language instruction classes, undergraduate students are not the only ones starting classes this semester.

After a brief break in Fall 2021, OSR re-launched its adult education programs during Spring 2022 with online Arabic classes. This marked the beginning of another fruitful round of educational programming for the NYU Abu Dhabi community including contracted colleagues, domestic worker colleagues, faculty members and their families and post-docs among others.

Vinay Kasturi, a contracted colleague from EFS who has been working with NYUAD since 2017, describes how his English courses helped him communicate better with his supervisors, which eventually catapulted him to the position of the team leader. “I have taken multiple levels of English in the Workplace classes in addition to classes in computer literacy, financial development, and personal health and hygiene,” he explained. “For me this is a very good opportunity because I couldn’t continue my studies due to family issues. Now I can work and study at the same time. They provide us with transportation as well.”

Along with online Arabic classes, OSR also held its first in-person English in the Workplace class in Summer 2022 after classes were abruptly stopped in Spring 2020. Both classes were joined by over 80 community members.

Jomy Joshy, a contracted colleague with Global Wings describes the English classes as “well organized” and “wonderful.” “Ms. Joana helped me a lot to learn new words. The English in the Workplace course gave me new ideas to talk with the customers or clients who I meet daily,” he added.

Over the Summer, OSR also held a Preventative Health Workshop series in collaboration with Re:Set. These workshops focused on debunking cultural myths surrounding fertility, preventative health, and illustrated how stress affects the female body for almost 40 participants.

Sharing her experience of the series, Dhan Maya Tamang from EFS said, “For us, it was very helpful because it gave us a space to ask questions in a manner that we felt comfortable. I am very happy to have gotten the opportunity to learn about such important things and to be able to ask questions without hesitating as it was a female-only space.”

In order to curate intentional and impactful programming that caters to the diverse needs of the NYUAD community, OSR runs an annual survey in hopes of continuously improving their initiatives and programming. For the annual year 2021-22, the contracted colleague and domestic worker survey, released from May 27 till July 1, resulted in 81 eligible responses.

Similarly, the community programming survey, released from May 27 till June 18, resulted in 72 eligible responses. Both the surveys were sent out via multiple channels including guidebook, mailing list of program participants, Al Shola, intranet and social media pages, with multiple reminders being sent out periodically.

In the academic year 2022-23, OSR is also planning on re-starting its other Adult Education certificate offerings such as computer literacy classes, professional development classes, IT classes and photography classes in collaboration with other NYUAD departments. The team is excited to bring OSR’s flagship programming back in full swing through fall and explore new avenues to support the community moving forward.

“It’s really great to be a part of the re-launching process of OSR’s in-person programming. During my time as a student assistant, it was disheartening to see the in-person classes stop due to the Covid-19 pandemic,” explained Aasna Sijapati, Office of Social Responsibility Assistant Instructor, who worked with the office as a student assistant for almost 3 years as an NYUAD student. “Now that I oversee the development and administrative part of OSR’s programming in a more official capacity, I’m even more excited to finally bring our colleagues back to the classrooms!”