Pal-Think's Civic Education Forum holds awareness sessions on democracy and the Palestinian electoral system

The civic-education forum overseen by Pal-Think for Strategic Studies carried out awareness meetings over ZOOM targeting male and female students of the Palestinian universities, focused on topics related to the issues of democracy and political participation in the Palestinian situation.

The meeting was opened by Pal-Think's director, Mr Omar Shaban, affirming that Pal-Think focuses in its programmes on developing the capacities of young people of both sexes in the issues of democracy and human rights, and that through its activities Pal-Think seeks to empower young people to become more capable of expressing their causes and concerns.

Shaban also noted that during this project a number of university students were trained in the topics of human rights, democracy, political participation, the Palestinian legal system, gender-based violence, accountability and transparency, pressure and advocacy, as well as presentation skills — through an intensive training programme. He affirmed that these trainees will work to pass the skills and knowledge they learned during the training to their peers by carrying out awareness meetings and pressure and advocacy campaigns.

The first meeting was titled “Political participation and its role in decision-making”, moderated by a group of young researchers — Hadeel Ahel, Aya Ashour, and Mohammed Abu al-Atta. It addressed the concept of political participation within the theoretical framework, the political socialisation of youth and its importance in developing the participatory experience in decision-making, with the projections onto the Palestinian youth experience in the elections made clear. The forms of political participation and their characteristics were discussed, followed by the reality and obstacles of youth political participation and the mechanisms of activating it. For his part, researcher Mohammed al-Talbani spoke, affirming the importance of Palestinian youth's political participation especially under the current circumstances the Palestinian cause is passing through, and affirming that there are many legal texts that support and uphold young people's right to political participation.

The second meeting, moderated by Menna Hijazi, Fares Burjis, and Abdullah Abu Jazar, was titled “Democracy and the Palestinian electoral system”. It addressed the concept of democracy as the people's right to choose, set out the stages of its development and its philosophical basis, the principles of strengthening democracy under the frame of protecting the law and society's interests without discrimination, and the stages and procedures of the electoral process in the Palestinian situation.