Rana Dajani: "We Love Reading"

March 27, 2017 by Rana Dajani

Recent articles by and about Rana Dajani and the We Love Reading program, of which she is Founder and Director. Dajani was a speaker at the Dart Center's Global Reporting Institute on Early Childhood Experience & the Developing Brain; March 9-12, 2017.

Rana Dajani

Founder and Director - We Love to Read, Jordan

Rana Dajani has developed a community-based model to encourage children to read for pleasure, We Love Reading (WLR). Based in Jordan, WLR has spread to more than 30 countries across the globe and has received numerous honors, including the 2009 Synergos award for Arab world social innovators, membership to the Clinton Global Initiative in 2010, the Library of Congress Literary Award for Best Practices in 2013, the 2014 WISE Qatar Award, the 2014 King Hussein Medal of Honor, a 2015 honor for the 50 Most Talented Social Innovators at the World CSR Congress, the 2015 OpenIDEO top idea for refugee education and a 2015 Star Award for education impact.

Dajani has been an Eisenhower fellow, a two-time Fulbright alumnus, an Associate Professor and Director of the center of studies at the Hashemite University in Jordan, a visiting professor at the Yale Stem Cell Center, a visiting scholar at the University of Cambridge and a visiting professor at the Stem Cell Therapy center in Jordan. Her lab is comprised of world experts on the genetics of Circassian and Chechan populations in Jordan, focusing on diabetes and cancer. Dajani spearheaded the effort to establish a law for stem cell research ethics in Jordan, and is a strong advocate for the theory of biological evolution and of its compatibility with Islam.

Dajani is a consultant to the higher council for science and technology in Jordan. She has written in Science and Nature about women and science in the Arab world, and is on the UN Women Jordan advisory council. She has established a network for women mentors and mentees and received the PEER Award for the model Three Circles of Alemat. In 2014, she was chosen as one of the 20 most influential women scientists in the Islamic world, and in 2015, among the 100 most powerful women in the Arab world and elected to the women in science hall of fame. She was awarded the King Hussein Cancer & Biotechnology Institute award in 2009, and the 2017 Global Change maker Award from IIE/Fulbright.

She has a Ph.D. in molecular biology from the University of Iowa.

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Rana Dajani: "We Love Reading"

Request Publications

Tragedies & Journalists

Reporting War

News Media & Trauma

Covering Children & Trauma

Child Clinicians & the Media

Covering Columbine

Ethical Reporting on People Affected by Trauma

Peer Support for Journalists

Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence from Domestic Abuse to Political Terror

Achilles in Vietnam: Combat Trauma and the Undoing of Character

Journalists under Fire: The Psychological Hazards of Covering War

PTSD and Veterans: A Conversation with Dr. Frank Ochberg

Mapping Trauma and Its Wake: Autobiographic Essays by Pioneer Trauma Scholars

Post-Traumatic Therapy And Victims Of Violence (Psychosocial Stress Series)

Witness to an Extreme Century: A Memoir

Odysseus in America: Combat Trauma and the Trials of Homecoming

Trauma Journalism: On Deadline in Harm's Way

After the War Zone: A Practical Guide for Returning Troops and Their Families

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Trauma Therapy in Context: The Science and Craft of Evidence-based Practice

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The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide

Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence

Covering Violence: A Guide to Ethical Reporting About Victims & Trauma

Sharing the Front Line and the Back Hills

The Roots of Evil: The Origins of Genocide and Other Group Violence

Parallel Justice for Victims of Crime

Without Honor: Defeat in Vietnam and Cambodia

Lost Lives: The Stories of the Men, Women and Children who Died as a Result of the Northern Ireland Troubles

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Patriot Acts: Narratives of Post-9/11 Injustice

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Legal Lynching: The Death Penalty and America's Future

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Blood and Soil: A World History of Genocide and Extermination from Sparta to Darfur

The Troubles We've Seen

Ghosts by Daylight: Love, War, and Redemption

Echoes of Violence: Letters from a War Reporter (Human Rights and Crimes against Humanity)

It's What I Do: A Photographer's Life of Love and War

Irritable Hearts: A PTSD Love Story

Annihilating Difference: The Anthropology of Genocide

Torture Team: Rumsfeld's Memo and the Betrayal of American Values

Shoah

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Carnage and the Media

Nostalgia for the Light

War Stories

The Secret Life of War: Journeys Through Modern Conflict

On Television

Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America

Mindfulness: An Eight-Week Plan for Finding Peace in a Frantic World

Full Catastrophe Living: Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain, and Illness

Sleep: A Very Short Introduction

King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa

The Universal Journalist

Fighting for the Rain Forest

Legends of People Myths of State: Violence, Intolerance, and Political Culture in Sri Lanka

Family Secrets: Shame and Privacy in Modern Britain

On the Natural History of Destruction

The Sewing Circles of Herat: A Personal Voyage Through Afghanistan

House of Stone: The True Story of a Family Divided in War-Torn Zimbabwe

Butcher & Bolt: Two Hundred Years of Foreign Failure in Afghanistan

Jerusalem 1913: The Origins of the Arab-Israeli Conflict

They Fought for Each Other: The Triumph and Tragedy of the Hardest Hit Unit in Iraq

The War Comes Home: Washington's Battle against America's Veterans

Madame Dread: A Tale of Love, Vodou, and Civil Strife in Haiti

Columbine

Juvenile

Always Running: La Vida Loca: Gang Days in L.A.

Still Here: Stories After Katrina

Breaking News Breaking Down

One of the Guys: Women as Aggressors and Torturers

Monstering: Inside America's Policy of Secret Interrogations and Torture in the Terror War

Gogo Mama : A Journey Into the Lives of Twelve African Women

Shaking the Foundations: 200 Years of Investigative Journalism in America

Trauma Therapy in Context: The Science and Craft of Evidence-based Practice