Saeed Abu Jahl tells his story with the youth program “Wasla”
I have always had a passion and interest in joining training programs that are concerned with developing the use of digital tools, and fortunately I found the announcement of participation for the Wasla program on Facebook, and this was the first time that I registered for a valuable and practical training program like Wasla, Indeed, I was accepted in the stage of selecting participants, and I later confirmed that it was the best program for me ever, because it focused on developing our skills as young people in using social media platforms and digital advocacy for the rights of persons with disabilities.
Over the course of seven continuous training days, my knowledge of various topics increased: digital advocacy, life skills, human rights, vlog-making, visual identity, the most beautiful thing that Wasla gave me is the network of new friends of distinguished youth, young people with and without disabilities, who share common interests, exchange beautiful messages through Wasla mail and learn about each other’s experiences.
During Wasla training, I broke the barrier of hesitation and filmed the first short promotional video “Promo” covering the training events in detail, I don’t deny that I was a bit afraid about it, but I dared and shared the video on my Facebook page, my followers admired it, commenting, “Why you have never been on live or made videos on social media before? Your personality has charisma and you have a strong way of speaking.”
The training program was not the final stop, my friends in Wasla became my friends outside Wasla. Today, the events and issues that is catching my attention have changed, I feel that social responsibility pushes me to interact with the violations that I see through social networks, and I think that Wasla changed me from Saeed, normal user of Facebook, to Saeed, who is active digitally and socially.
Where I later participated in many youth events and initiatives through the Social Developmental Forum and other parties, the last of which was the “We Will Rebuild It” initiative in which we cleaned the streets of Gaza from the effects of the recent aggression on the Strip, during which I documented my experience in this initiative on my accounts on social media platforms and in partnership with Some local news channels.
I can now commend Wasla as the best youth experience I had and gained a lot from, as the development of my skills, knowledge, personality, interests and relationships owes to this special experience in my life.