Pal-Think's awareness meetings on democracy and human-rights issues

Pal-Think continues carrying out its awareness meetings taking up the issues of democracy and human rights in their diverse axes, targeting society's different groups including the youth category in particular — within the project “Strengthening civil society's role in supporting the Palestinian elections”, implemented by Pal-Think for Strategic Studies with funding from the Government of Canada. It carried out a meeting titled “Peaceful dialogue among Palestinian youth” in cooperation with the Carmel Association for Culture and Community Development in the middle governorate. The meeting took up acquaintance with the concept of dialogue and its rules, and setting out how to strengthen the culture of dialogue in society — especially among Palestinian youth, who lived the conditions of the Palestinian division and suffered its consequences and crises, which deepened and still do by force of the continuation of internal fighting and the repeated conflicts. The mechanisms of founding a sound, healthy environment for expressing opinion on the different issues, particularly political issues, were likewise taken up, with affirmation that the language of peaceful dialogue is the first outlet for reaching comprehensive communal peace for all parties — particularly as all the world experiences of ending any conflicts proceeded through resort to peaceful dialogues and understandings. The meeting included a theatrical sketch performed by the young attendees to express their view of the culture of dialogue in society, affirming the necessity of strengthening this culture and the importance of supporting youth toward contributing to spreading awareness of civil peace. The meeting was led by the trainee al-Baraa al-Zayyan, participant in the project — at the project's start a training programme for youth was carried out to qualify them to be activists able to pass on information and contribute to awareness-raising on democracy and rights topics.

Another meeting was likewise carried out in the southern governorate in cooperation with the Bright Tomorrow Association and the youth of the town in east Khan Younis, titled “The local committees and the municipalities — local democracy”. The meeting was led by the trainee Aseel Safi, on the tasks of the local committees and their role in empowering the municipalities and their responsiveness to citizens' needs — especially as the topic came at its right time, following the crisis the area suffers in infrastructure, and an advocacy campaign was launched around this crisis. The municipalities' means were likewise discussed, and the importance of engaging youth in decision-making — affirming their positive role, embodied in several bodies' joining and their support for the campaign the youth waged. This campaign was discussed from the perspective of local democracy, with talk of youth's role in the change that develops society and contributes to producing solutions for all its crises.

The designations used and the presentation of materials in this programme entail no expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of the Government of Canada