Workshop: Youth's role after the assault on Gaza — lessons and challenges

Pal-Think for Strategic Studies organised yesterday a workshop that included the Ahel youth assembly, titled “The youth's role after the aggression on Gaza — lessons and challenges”.
The meeting, which gathered tens of youth representing all the spectra of the Palestinian political colour, was opened with a word by Mr Omar Shaban, director of the Pal-Think for Strategic Studies institution, speaking about the current Palestinian situation and the traces the war left behind, and the horizon and challenges of the future relating to the reconstruction and the youth's role in it.
On strengthening the youth's role in Palestinian society and instilling the spirit of voluntary work among the youth and its importance in opening horizons of work and giving them the needed experience in practical life in the future, he urged the youth to take part in voluntary works, especially those in which a kind of specialisation is available.
On this point, an open discussion was stirred among the attending youth, and they put many questions about the process of exploiting volunteer youth at the institutions working in the Gaza Strip and about the difficulty of finding an opportunity for voluntary work with them; and about finding practical solutions for that and a mechanism for oversight of the performance of the institutions working in the Strip and their outputs.
As for the tragic situations our Palestinian society is passing through, in an open intellectual dialogue with the youth the attendees agreed on not surrendering to reality however manifest the difficulties, and the necessity of going out, taking part, and following up with all the specialised bodies and the working institutions in order to find a real work opportunity in light of the unprecedented phenomenon of unemployment the Palestinian people is passing through.
In a constructive dialogue among the participating youth, several ideas were discussed relating to the youth's role in the reconstruction after the aggression, and at the end of the meeting they came out with the following recommendations:
Forming specialised youth crews that carry out voluntary tasks in the following fields:
• Taking part in the process of removing the rubble the Israeli aggression left behind.
• Carrying out entertainment activities for the children, in the schools and outside them, to help them rid themselves of the psychological traces the aggression left behind.
• Carrying out activities targeting the elderly, helping them, and entertaining them after what they passed through in the aggression.
• Helping the farmers repair their lands and plant them with trees, and providing them what is possible of trees and agricultural tools.