Pal-Think celebrates the graduation of the second group of young civic intellectuals

Pal-Think for Strategic Studies celebrated the conclusion of the “Civic Education — phase two” project, funded by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), with a closing ceremony attended by the graduates and a group of community-active youth. The “civic-education body” members took part in presenting and organising the ceremony, and showcased a set of inspiring youth experiences from the project. The ceremony was presented by participant “Abdelrahman Ismail”, who expressed in the name of his colleagues their joy at this participation after months of collective youth work — in training, in preparing the workshops and sessions, in readying the media sessions, then in writing the papers, all the way to a closing ceremony with a book that gathers their ideas and carries their names.

The project manager at Pal-Think, Sally al-Sammak, expressed her delight that the participants had reached the closing ceremony, after the project's activities and events were delivered effectively by the trainers, activists, trainees, and everyone who contributed and took part in the project.

Sally al-Sammak reviewed the idea of the project, its implementation stages, the achievements of the participants in “Civic Education 2”, and the results attained — the most important of which, at the closing ceremony, was the distribution of the book “Young Pens”, which gathers the research papers the project's participants produced. Closing her word, she assured the participants and attendees that Pal-Think will maintain constant contact with the graduates, whether through educational or awareness activities, keeping them continually informed of Pal-Think's knowledge production and including them in its ongoing activities.

Some participants presented their experiences and success stories. The start was with participant Aseel Safi, who expressed her thanks and gratitude for the opportunity Pal-Think provided, especially since “I was a shy girl without emotional steadiness, but after the training, the practice, and the experience the project gave me, my presentation, writing, and public-speaking skills grew stronger — and so did I.” Safi added that civic education gave her the chance to discuss rights and educational topics with all groups, especially youth, and she became able to put forward her opinions and ideas objectively — crowned by producing a research paper with her colleagues despite all the difficulties and challenges.

Participant Nour Abed expressed her deep thanks to Pal-Think, which gave her the opportunity to join the training programme “Preparing a civic educator — phase two”, which she described as a fruitful and motivating experience. She described the programme saying: “It was not merely a training programme — it had a great effect on my life and my professional path. It opened doors to new opportunities and helped me expand and develop in the field of democracy and human rights.”

The third inspiring experience came from participant Abdullah al-Baba, who spoke of the impact the project achieved by integrating him and involving him in the issues of Palestinian society, having previously known little about democracy and human rights in the Palestinian context in theory or practice. He explained how the training was an inspiring factor: “to be an effective member of society — for education is our most important means, as youth, toward maturity.”

The final experience was with participant Miad Omar, who began her word saying: “Today I stand among you speaking about my modest experience — about my ability to speak and present my vision and idea before an audience. That is the project and the programme.” She added: “speaking about democracy and social issues, taking up the search for paths of empowerment, and putting forward ideas with colleagues would not have been possible without months of serious, fruitful work by Pal-Think.”

The ceremony's segments included “Palestinian folklore”, followed by the distribution of certificates to the participants.

The “Civic Education” project ran from July 2022 to June 2023 with the aim of spreading the concepts of democracy among youth, strengthening their role in society, and enabling them to take part in decision-making. It included

training young men and women on the concepts of democracy, human rights, and community education, and on the methodologies of civic education and research writing that grow their skills and develop their writing abilities and critical thinking, in addition to the meetings and dialogues held across all areas of the Gaza Strip.