From a Participant in the youth program”Wasla” to the facilitaor of dialogue in “keef Shaifh” tour Amira Al-Natour tells her story
Amira Al-Natour, a 20-year-old youth activist, studies English language education at Al-Azhar University and works with a number of volunteer teams to advocate for societal issues through social media platforms and other digital tools.
Amira is one of those accepted into Wasla program in its second year, and since the first training day, Amira was keen to get the most benefit from the training, as she was able, with her intelligence and social personality, to be a friend of all trainees.
After the end of the training, Amira was one of the selected to participate in “ Keef Shaifha” tour, which comes within the activities of Wasla program, which in turn sheds light on the services provided to people with disabilities in light of the Corona pandemic, so Amira was not only a participant, but went beyond that to be the facilitator of the dialogue in the hearing that was held with the Ministry of Social Development, which made its experience distinctive!
Amira describes her experience on the tour as different, and says, “There are many experiences, and every time the experience proves to us that we have great energies and we can always be the best.”
As before going through this experience, she was a pioneer in all the youth programs that helped her to enhance her connection, communication and leadership skills, but despite the many programs and training that were part of her and despite the diversity of her axes, she never dealt with persons with disabilities and did not live the experience of inclusion as she did on the tour, and she did not get the opportunity to express disability issues in a legal manner, which resulted in her lack of knowledge of the human rights concepts and terminology related to persons with disabilities, but all this differed after “ Keef Shaifha” tour.
She says: “After going through the experience of “Keef Shaifha” tour, my self-confidence became greater, and my knowledge of the basics of constructive dialogue increased and how I defend the rights of people with disabilities in a human right rather than a human way, and this reflected on my personality in a great way. Rarely is there an opportunity to hear the voice and issues of people with disabilities and contribute in communicating them to decision-makers, and what we went through in “Keef Shaifha” tour is one of the rare opportunities through which we prove that young people are the first engine to push forward societal change.
For the first time, Amira is living the experience of a “dialogue facilitator”, and for the first time she has the opportunity to be with decision-makers at the same table, which encouraged her to break the barrier of fear and manage the dialogue well! She was also able to contribute to the success of the tour with her trainees, through a set of recommendations that they presented to decision-makers, which focused on placing persons with disabilities on the list of priorities when providing services in light of the Corona pandemic.
Amira concludes her experience, “Our experiences are our way of developing us, and the experience of “Keef Shaifha” tour gave me an opportunity to contribute even in a small way to presenting the issues of persons with disabilities and claiming their rights by making recommendations after hearings with decision-makers. Thanks to the forum and Wasla family for this opportunity and thanks for the tour because it taught me not to walk around with my conversations without much research on the issue that I am asking for.”