The «Expression and intellectual writing skills» training opens

Gaza — The “Pal-Think” for Strategic Studies institution in Gaza City opened a training programme titled “Skills of expression and intellectual writing”, which extends over 10 training days in the period between 15 and 26 September 2019. This training comes within the activities of the project “Strengthening political participation among Palestinian youth”, which aims to empower youth to develop and hone the skills of expression, speech, and intellectual writing, and to strengthen and activate the communal participation of youth in Palestine — with funding from the Government of Canada, and with the participation of 20 young men and women chosen according to their competence and their capacity for effective writing, distributed to cover all the areas of the Gaza Strip geographically and demographically.

The training programme was opened by Mr Omar Shaban, director of the “Pal-Think for Strategic Studies” institution, praising the youth's leading role in the development and rise of Palestinian society, which needs their energies, and affirming the institution's effective role in developing the youth cadre and serving it in what pours into the public interest and communal building. He added that it is necessary for youth to possess sufficient awareness of the regional policies and events influential in the Palestinian affair, for the speed and effectiveness of dealing with the various changes on the international arena — pointing to the role of the training aimed at building representatives of the Palestinian people able to convey Palestine's beautiful picture in all the diplomatic, media, and legal channels of communication.

He likewise affirmed the role of the word and its power in conveying the Palestinians' message and establishing their presence in the international forums and media circles — narrating examples of the peaceful struggles around the world whose experiences we can benefit from in championing the Palestinian cause, achieving the national reconciliation, and solving the disputes leading to the internal division.

He likewise welcomed the trainer Mohammed al-Natour, the consultant and legal activist specialised in training in the fields of communal and legal intervention and life skills. Mr Mohammed affirmed the depth of the “Pal-Think” institution's influence in building young Palestinian leaderships and its attention to the effective element latent in the youth's energies. He urged the training's participants to intensify efforts, speaking of the important roles the course's graduates will occupy in issuing papers that address the key issues facing the Palestinian people generally, and the citizens in the Gaza Strip especially.

The first day of the training took up a set of interactive activities the trainer carried out to establish the concepts and skills of communication among the participants and invest them in honing a solid personality in them, enabling them to speak with confidence and strength before the public.

The participants worked in separate groups on discussing and presenting multiple aspects of the skills of effective communication and the qualities of the successful communication process, in addition to the impediments of the communication process and the ways of dealing with them.

The encounter took up some important topics, such as women's important role and their participation in the political process and their distinctive capacity in connection and communication, in addition to the ethical and professional considerations of the journalistic, legal, and humane communication process when meeting different strata of the components of Palestinian and international society.

The encounter concluded with a review of the important points discussed during the day and the passing of feedback between the trainer and the participants. The participants expressed their enthusiasm for other topics to be taken up by the highly competent trainers in the rest of the training programme continuing for ten days, among them: body-language skills, presentation skills, leadership skills, workshops of successful writing, effective narration, content writing, and others. The training will conclude with the review and presentation of the participants' writings by a specialised committee, to crown the participants' efforts and release their energies in reformative and positive directions that pour into benefit for society as a whole.