Pal-Think meets the president of Gaza University and presents the civic-education guide

Within the frame of strengthening cooperation, coordination, and communication with the higher-education institutions in the Gaza Strip, Pal-Think for Strategic Studies met the president of the University of Gaza, Prof. Dr Riyad al-Khoudary, with the participation of the director of Pal-Think for Strategic Studies, Mr Omar Shaban, and the members of the civic-education body at Pal-Think.

Receiving the Pal-Think delegation were Prof. Dr Riyad al-Khoudary, “president of the University of Gaza”, and Dr Ziyad al-Dabbagh, “the university's vice-president for academic affairs”.

At the beginning of the visit the director of Pal-Think, “Mr Omar Shaban”, spoke, thanking the university, its deanship, and its employees for the cooperation and flexibility in coordination during the implementation of the activities of the project “Preparing a Civic Educator”, which Pal-Think implements with funding from the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) — setting out that this coordination expresses the university's interest in developing and strengthening the students' skills and knowledge at the university.

He likewise affirmed that this project comes within the efforts Pal-Think exerts for the sake of developing and strengthening the capacities of youth of both sexes in the issues of democracy and human rights.

He likewise mentioned that Pal-Think, within the project “Preparing a Civic Educator”, worked on training 25 university students in the issues of democracy, human rights, the system of government in Palestine, and gender-based violence, then opened the field before them to coordinate with the universities and civil society institutions to carry out awareness meetings targeting their fellow university students in order to pass to them the knowledge and information they had acquired; radio episodes were likewise carried out with the students' participation, and a training manual was prepared titled “The Civic Education Manual”.

At the close of his word Omar Shaban presented a letter of thanks and appreciation to the university and a copy of the civic-education manual, making clear the importance of the information contained in it and affirming the necessity of placing it in the university's library to serve as a permanent reference for the students, and for researchers and those interested in the issues of democracy, human rights, gender-based violence, the system of government in Palestine, and integrity and transparency.

For his part, the president of the University of Gaza, Prof. Dr Riyad al-Khoudary, spoke, thanking Pal-Think for the visit and affirming the importance of the activities Pal-Think carries out inside the universities, which work to grow and develop university students' skills. Al-Khoudary likewise encouraged the carrying out of more activities inside the university, setting out that the University of Gaza continuously encourages the carrying out of any activities inside the university of a kind to strengthen youth's capacities.