Pal-Think concludes a training course on tolerance and rejecting fanaticism

The Pal-Think for Strategic Studies centre concluded today, Tuesday 25/9/2012, a training course entitled “Tolerance and the rejection of bigotry” in Gaza City. This training comes within the series of activities the centre carries out for the sake of “supporting the participation of civil society towards unity, democracy and the rule of law”. This course, which was implemented, aimed to build awareness-raising thinking among the participants about the importance of a culture of tolerance, human rights and the concepts of democracy and pluralism. The course targeted 20 male and female participants from among university students, youth activists and members of local and media institutions.

The training course, which was organised over 15 hours across 3 consecutive days, addressed three subjects: the first subject, presented by the lawyer Salah Abdel Ati, dealt with “Human rights and international legitimacy”; the second subject dealt with “Tolerance” and was presented by the lawyer Talal Abu Rokba; while the lawyer Fatma Ashour dealt in the third subject with “Democracy and citizenship”.

Omar Shaban, director of Pal-Think for Strategic Studies, pointed out that the project “Supporting the participation of civil society towards unity, democracy and the rule of law”, funded by the Swiss government, includes many activities aimed at strengthening the concept of tolerance among the target groups, with the aim of enhancing the participants' knowledge of their political, social, cultural and economic rights, and also working to spread the principle of tolerance within society.

Within the project's activities, many events will be organised, among them a “youth media trip to archaeological and religious sites in the Gaza Strip”, as well as a set of workshops and meetings hosting leaders and people of influence and decision, a blood-donation campaign, in addition to many training courses that strengthen the principle of tolerance within society, and many other activities.

The participants expressed their happiness at the holding of the training course, calling for the necessity of holding similar training courses dealing with the concepts of religious and social tolerance, in addition to many practical and training activities in this field.