Pal-Think delivers a series of awareness meetings on democracy and gender-based violence

Within the role Pal-Think for Strategic Studies practises in the field of strengthening youth's capacities and growing and developing their skills in the issues of democracy and human rights, the civic-education forum supervised by Pal-Think for Strategic Studies carried out three awareness meetings on democracy and gender-based violence.

This comes within the frame of the project “Preparing a Civic Educator”, implemented by Pal-Think for Strategic Studies with funding from the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), which aims to train a group of male and female university students in topics related to democracy, human rights, and gender-based violence, and to empower them to become more able to express their opinions and aspirations.

The first meeting, carried out at the University of Gaza, was titled “The principles of democracy”, led by the student Aya Abu Hatab and the student Abdallah Hasanein. They spoke during it on the concept of democracy, the stages of the crystallisation of the concept of democracy, the relationship between democracy and human rights, the elements of democracy, and the impediments of democratic transformation; the facilitators likewise spoke on freedoms and democracy's relationship to pumping new blood into the spirit of the political process.

As for the second meeting, it was carried out at the Graduates Association, titled “Gender-based violence”, led by the student Hadeel Ahel and the student Asia al-Batrikhi. During the meeting there was talk on the concept of gender and sex and the difference between them, and talk on awareness and ignorance of gender, putting forward the Palestinian reality and the most important cultural and legal imbalances that contribute to the stagnation toward the turn to justice — with the presentation of a short explanatory video on the gender concepts. During the meeting there was likewise talk on social roles and the setting out of the concept of gender-based violence, its kinds, and the effects consequent on it, and the latest studies related to the rise of the rates of violence in the Gaza Strip.

The third meeting, carried out at the Fares al-Arab institution, was titled “Gender-based violence in Palestinian society”.

The meeting was led by the student Suha Sukkar, who spoke on the concept of gender, the forms of gender-based violence in the Palestinian condition, and the mechanisms of dealing with cases of gender-based violence; she likewise reviewed the legal texts that treat the issues of gender-based violence.

It is recalled that the facilitators of the awareness meetings are a group of male and female university students who were trained by Pal-Think within an intensive training programme that continued for two consecutive weeks, during which the focus was on the issues of democracy, human rights, the system of government in Palestine, the principles of integrity and transparency, and gender-based violence.