Highlights: Yalla Change 2018 training

Continuing its youth’s activities and social interventions, on September, 19th 2018, SDF launched its Yalla Change II youth training project. Over the course of two weeks, the training targeted 66 young men and women in the Gaza Strip, both graduates and college students.  The training was at Al-Mathaf Hotel in Gaza City.

“We launched the second round of the project following last year’s activites. We targeted college students and graduates with different academic backgrounds, aged 18-24 years old. The aim is to empower them and teach them life skills”, Nareman Hwaihi, project coordinator.

She pointed that the participants received training on life skills, creative thinking and effective citizenship along with training on the optimal use of social media platforms and developing social media advocacy and support  campaigns.

Mahmoud Zant, SDF executive director noted that the training will be followed by several activities related to implementing a number of youth initiatives in the Gaza Strip. This comes in line with the Forum’s mission of empowering youth’s role in using social media to express themselves and their community’s issues.

“Yalla Change is one of the Forum’s strategic interventions that looks to youth as the most important social component, especially given the complicated situation in Gaza and the West Bank as a result of the occupation’s practices and the internal conflicts that reflected primary on limiting participation and more economic and social complications”, Zant commented on Yalla Change.

Training

The participants underwent two weeks of life skills, advocacy and human rights as well as using social media in their social campaigns.

“This training focuses on number of life skills that will empower the participants to become effective and productive members of their communities.  The practical training will also provide them with a set of skills focusing on advocacy campaigns and social initiatives”, Mar’i Bashir, life skills and advocacy trainer in the project.

Some of the practical activities that the trainers use, he noted, are being used for the first time in Gaza Strip. They aim to point participants toward learning by observation.

Mohammed Srour, the human rights trainer and researcher at The Independent  Commission for Human Rights focused his training on the major topics of human rights and effective citizenships. “The youth of tomorrow must be fully aware of the rights stated by national laws and the international law of  human rights which works to enhance and develop community life and helps build youth’s capacities and qualifies hem to engage in the community”, he added.

The human rights training was built on active participation and using practical exercises aiming to break the rigidity of legal texts and turn them into practical experiences that individuals can come across in their lives. The trainer did notice a gap in legal and human rights texts and the reality that the participants live in in absence of democratic practices and the law. However, the trainer was able to fill the gap and deliver the correct information to the trainees.

The social media trainer, Mohammed Abu Kmeail focused on earning participants advocacy and support campaigns’ skills using social media which has a major youth presence. “Nowadays, youth relay on social media for most of their lives spending hours every day. This is why they require guidance on their optimal use  in developing their skills of covering causes”, he added.

He pointed out that the training is an advanced stage of the previous trainings that they usually worked on. This training is mostly based on practical applications in the planning and implementation of community initiatives, using a range of techniques and tools available on social networks as well as sharpening the trainees skills to be able to better express their issues and rights through their personal accounts.

Zant, the Executive Director of the Forum, noted that the training topics were based on the latest scientific methods, using highly qualified experts during the training. “We achieved the training outputs through a number of training techniques that included brainstorming, group exercises and group work, worksheets and models, as well as slideshows, role-play, and open debate. “

Participants’ feedback

Waseem Al-Sisi, a 20-year-old business administration student, is one of the participants in Yalla Change. Mohammed is a civil society volunteer. “Although I have previously acquired many life skills through volunteering in several institutions, I have received many new information”. He noted that he found the practical methods used by the trainers most appealing.  

He continued, “I mostly enjoyed the topics of the training, and the trainers and their methods of delivering information. I participated in many youth initiatives before but I didn’t master many of the special skills in social media. The training ga