An IC coaching partnership with an innovative changemaker

Said El Kadi (right) with Inspire Citizens co-founder Steve Sostak (left) and Ivy Yan at the NESA Fall Leadership Conference in Abu Dhabi.

Said El Kadi is a lively, articulate, results-oriented young man. A third culture kid (TCK) who has spent most of his life attending international schools, he has a global perspective that is expansive, reflective and multi-layered, and he is passionate about using his voice to create positive and purposeful change. 

Educators need to hear more often from students like Said. A graduate of the American Community School Beirut (ACSB), Said is now in his first year at Harvard University. And last week, he presented an opening keynote to a group of educational leaders from the NESA region (Near East South Asia Council of Overseas Schools) gathered in Abu Dhabi. 

“International schools have a role that goes much further than educating students,” says Said. “They hold a moral role in the community and with local schools, and I spoke about the different realities that students and teachers face in international schools.”

Said’s theme connected to the title of “Be Profound” and he explored how school leaders can be conscious influencers, and how different realities or perspectives can shape and impact the experience of teaching and learning. For instance, many schools have a rigorous academic option (IB/AP) for students as well as a non-IB/AP route. Culturally, there may be a more “international” pathway for students alongside a more “local” or host country experience. 

“I’m curious about these different realities and what they mean for education,” says Said. “For instance, in the academic realm, what about students who aren’t top academic students or those who need learning support? What supports exist for those students in the middle? How do they get encouraged to excel or engage in opportunities for extension?”

Said has been pondering these types of questions for some time because of his interest in educational and public policy. He was born in Lebanon and lived in Cairo and Beirut for his K-12 life. 

“I’ve always been passionate about education, and in high school I did the trademark international school activities like Model United Nations, National Honor Society and student government,” explains Said. “I was very interested in educational and public policy in Lebanon and worked on research with the Lebanese Center for Policy Studies (LCPS) and then went on to founding the youth policy wing of the American University in Beirut’s Knowledge to Policy (K2P) Center.”

In 10th grade, Said reached out to the LCPS by email and convinced people there that he needed to be considered for an interview.

“Once I was there, I was able to have a voice. Once you’re in the room, and you have good ideas and enthusiasm, those ideas can resonate,” reflects Said. 

ACSB is a NESA-member school and, as such, Said was able to apply for scholarships at key points in his educational career. 

“In middle school, I did a lot of work with peace education and was the national representative for Lebanon in the international NGO CISV. This led me, in 8th grade, to apply for a NESA scholarship that was meant to honor a ‘renaissance student’. When I won that scholarship, it was a great moment for me and really connected me with NESA,” he remembers.

Then, in 12th grade, Said applied for a Margaret Saunders Scholarship and won based on his work with the LCPS. 

“My work on the keynote for the NESA conference this month has been inspired by my work with focus groups in the Lebanese Center for Policy Studies,” says Said. “It’s amazing to be in a focus group with disparate youth from divergent perspectives. It’s about creating a space and recognizing different realities in the same Lebanese context.”

Inspire Citizens founder Steve Sostak worked with Said to plan an exciting and interactive component in the keynote session. Said’s speech was divided into two parts and Steve led an interactive and experiential workshop in the middle so school leaders could experience some of the ideas and themes from the keynote. 

Some “Share the Journey” cards created by Inspire Citizens and NESA for use in the opening keynote session. The cards are themed to match the Inspire Citizens’ Head-Heart-Hands model.

“Working with Steve has been very collaborative,” says Said. “We’re sharing a slide deck and he’s had some great feedback for me. I have really enjoyed working together and I am excited about the session.” 

Said thinks he may major in government and economics during his undergrad years at Harvard, and he hopes to return to the Middle East in the future to work in public policy and technology. He also sees himself remaining engaged with education because it’s such a personal passion area. 

“One of the approaches in our session involves what we dubbed profound listening, and I think being profound or insightful in a plenary like this doesn’t have to entail some original research to showcase. It can be simple and grounding, like the experiences we shared during that opening session for school leaders,” says Said.

The NESA school leaders who had the opportunity to experience Said’s keynote and Steve’s experiential workshop are lucky educators, indeed. Many participants will be telling the story of the session for a long time to come.

Photos below: Said involved in a variety of changemaker activities in high school (top row) and Said presenting to NESA school leaders at the Fall Leadership Conference 2022 (bottom row).