Pal-Think and the AMAN coalition conclude a training course on debating

The Pal-Think for Strategic Studies institution, at its headquarters in the Gaza Strip, in cooperation with the Coalition for Integrity and Accountability “AMAN”, organised on Monday and Tuesday, 31 August–1 September 2015, a training course titled “Debates”, with the attendance of thirty young men and women of the graduates of media, law, and political science.

The course was opened by Mr Omar Shaban, director of the Pal-Think for Strategic Studies institution, welcoming the trainees and affirming the importance of the youth's role in changing and building society. Shaban stressed the necessity of adopting the concepts of democracy and following the approach of accountability and initiative.

On the first day, the training was delivered by Mr Bakr al-Turkmani, the legal advisor of the AMAN institution, and he focused in his session on the draft law of “The right of access to information”, which aims to enable the citizen and the resident in Palestine to exercise the right of access to the information held by the public institutions according to the provisions of this law, and to instil the spirit of transparency and accountability in the Palestinian public institutions and encourage openness to the people.

On the training's second day, supervised by the trainer Mahmoud Abdel Hadi, the specialist in developmental issues, the subject of “debates” was taken up — their concept, their forms, their kinds, their advantages, and their role as an instrument of social accountability and the fight against corruption. At the end of the training the participants were divided into four groups, each group taking up a subject so as to apply what they had learned about debates and their management.
On the course's margin, the student Ahmed Jarad, one of the participants in the course, commented saying: “Such courses are important in building the youth's capacities and strengthening their confidence in themselves. Debates are important as one of the instruments of communal accountability and the fight against corruption, and we as youth and media people must adopt such instruments as an attempt at change in the current reality. We also asked for a detailed course of no less than three training days on debates — there are promises to answer this request.”

It is worth mentioning that this training is considered the final training within the project Youth for Diversity and Democratic Education, which Pal-Think carries out with the support of the European Endowment for Democracy (EED). Along its lines there previously came three training courses in cooperation with the Coalition for Integrity and Accountability “AMAN”, aiming to strengthen the youth's role in shaping a better future and to develop the youth's capacities and knowledge in the rights field and communal and political development.