Crescent Petroleum to Join Coalition!

Photos Courtesy of Crescent Petroleum.

GBC-Education is delighted to announce the expansion of the Coalition’s representation in the Middle East with the addition of our newest member, Crescent Petroleum! Despite its legacy as the oldest private oil and gas company in the Middle East, Crescent Petroleum and its affiliate enterprises prides itself for its reputation as one of the most progressive holding groups in the MENA region.

Headquartered in the United Arab Emirates, the oil and gas company regularly supports communities where they operate by investing in youth education and skills development to combat unemployment and support underprivileged communities. Crescent Petroleum has contributed to the development of education-specific initiatives such as MOSAIC, a community-based International Leadership Programme (ILP) which empowers young people in underprivileged communities to launch their own social initiatives through skills training. And, through the Abu Dhabi-based Centre for Economic Growth, in partnership with INSEAD and private sector partners across the Middle East, Crescent Petroleum supplies ongoing research on key economic interest areas in the region, including youth unemployment and education.

Most recently, Crescent Petroleum has shown leadership by supporting the development of a series of online English language teaching courses on Edraak – the first non-profit Arabic massive open online course (MOOC) platform, which is an initiative of the Queen Rania Foundation (QRF). The series is being developed in collaboration with the British Council in Jordan, to provide Arab-speaking learners with vital conversational skills to enhance their employability prospects. The series has attracted more than 200 thousand learners from across the Arab World to date, including learners in Syrian refugee camps across the Middle East.

Now, the Norwegian Refugee Council and Care International Jordan are piloting the course among beginner and elementary-level Arabic-speaking learners in the Zaatari as well as Azraq refugee camps where thousands of Syrian refugees currently live. Crescent Petroleum looks forward to working with GBC-Education to scale up their commitments in education for the Middle East.

“Right now, there are nearly 74 million children across the world who have been forced to pause their education due to emergencies alone. That figure doesn’t even take into consideration all the youth who have access to education, but fail to learn employable skills,” said CEO Majid Jafar, who regularly advocates for the private sector’s role in global development. “It is in our enlightened self-interest for business to start making a more meaningful and authentic contribution to the resilience of our most fragile populations through scaled-up education investment.”