MIFTAH
Friday, 29 March. 2024
 
Your Key to Palestine
The Palestinian Initiatives for The Promotoion of Global Dialogue and Democracy
 
 
 

Ramallah – This week, MIFTAH brought to a close its second training summer camp with the Palestinian Youth Network. The workshop, which took place over the course of three days, is part of the organization’s “Empowerment of Palestinian Youth Leadership” . The program, which is carried out in partnership with NDC, and the Irish and Norwegian Representative Offices, is aimed at empowering youth to participate in change and development in Palestine at the social and political levels.

“The camp seeks to create a participatory climate for youth action, both politically and socially in Palestine through merging groups of youth leaders in the program and empowering them towards active participation in this area,” says MIFTAH CEO Dr. Lily Feidy, In all, 40-50 network members were participants in camp.

Project coordinator Shadi Zbeidat explained how the camp worked: “The participants were divided into two groups. The camp’s agenda was devised to help create the highest degree of harmony and consistency between old and new members of the network . We wanted to build up a cohesive and complete group that could embrace the unified vision and goals and apply them collectively. The training the groups received were beneficial in this regard, providing youths with the tools they need to transition from the training level to one of practical implementation and intervention on a number of social and political issues. One tool is to connect individual awareness with the collective lack of awareness and vice versa. This was to mold an integral vision of the current situation and try to address it. Additionally, there was focus on the issue of social accountability, which the network plans to be a part of in the next stage. “

Zbeidat added that Dr. Azmi Shuaibi, the commissioner general of AMAN [Coalition for Accountability and Integrity] was a guest at the camp along with Ms. Hama Zeidan, director of the Advocacy and Legal Advice Center at AMAN. With the guests, the issue of social accountability was defined and addressed. This included its various levels, to whom it is directed and the need for tools and guarantees for accessing information in order to achieve accountability, which is one of the most important tools for integrity and transparency because of its significant impact on promoting democracy and partnership between various components of society. It also guides decision-makers to formulate policies, laws and initiatives in a way that fulfills the needs of citizens in general on the one hand, and strengthens the trust of citizens in their decision makers on the other. This contributes to creating a positive developmental atmosphere that helps to avoid a number of problems and social issues, which we suffer from at present. Over and above is the need to involve youth sectors in the social accountability system in order to spread this culture among them. It should be noted here that MIFTAH is a member of the AMAN Coalition.

Lana Bakr, a camp participant from Salfeet had very positive feedback to offer about the camp. “By getting together over the course of three days I think we were able to create a mutual identity among us. I realized that in spite of the differences in our opinions and approaches, there are still a number of mutual goals that unite us.” Bakr was also happy about the social networking aspect of the camp. “The camp provided me with a broad network of relations,” she said, “and the good thing was that each and every participant left with many different ideas.”

Najwan Abu Nijem, a student at Birzeit University drew comparisons between this year and last year’s summer camp. “Last year, it’s true that we had an agenda and were able to reach an overall framework and form a mutual identity among us. This year, however, things were a bit different in terms of the number of participants and their various backgrounds. The camp put us in an actual scenario where we work on our characters and personalities before we go out and apply our experiences in the social realm. This is the whole idea of the camp I believe: to strengthen relations between the individuals of the group and develop their skills.”

 
 
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