By Joseph Varghese/Staff Reporter

Members of the 2012 Learners Voice Programme (LVP) of World Innovation Summit for Education (WISE) shared their experiences during a roundtable yesterday.
The 2012 LVP team is undergoing a 10-day training session at the Students’ Centre of Hamad Bin
Khalifa University.
Opening the session, Ali al-Mohamoud, international educational conferences co-ordinator at Qatar Foundation, said that the team members had immensely benefitted from the year-long programme and training sessions.
He said: “The learners selected in 2012 are currently taking part in a year-long programme that combines online sessions, lectures and workshops about education, public policy and decision-making, social entrepreneurship, leadership and communication, as well as group work on a project in the field of
education.”
Al-Mahamoud said that the learners participated in a number of international conferences such as Empower 2013: Rota’s 5th Annual Youth Conference in Doha, THE 2013, in Doha, Asian Youth Forum and the 46th annual meeting of the board of governors at the Asian Development Bank, New Delhi, India, WISE/British Council event, Manchester, UK and Wheelock College Inaugural International Conference, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.
One of the participants, Huong Nguyen from Vietnam, said that participating in the Asian Youth Forum and the Asian Development Bank’s board of governors meeting was a great
experience for her.
She said: “This helped me immensely to understand more about the socio-economic issues prevalent in different parts of the world and made me realise many things. I would try to implement many of the things in my country.”
Bahauddin Baha from Afghanistan said that the LVP made him understand that traditional education alone was not enough to cope with the present situations. He said that he could clear many of the misgivings about his country at the international scenario and also learn more about the outside world.
Similarly, Firyal al-Balushi, a medical professional from Oman, said that there was no proper information about the medical statistics especially in the Middle East and the African countries.
She said that she was working on a project to develop a medical tool that will enable people to access information from the region and beyond.
Najla al-Khalifa from Qatar, Tala Hammash from Jordan and Maad Sharaf from Yemen also took part in the discussions during the meeting.