Young Advoctes Program (YAP)
A brief report about the first stage of the Young Advocates Program (YAP):
Jenka giving Media Training for YAP trainees. The Young Advocates Program (YAP) is a training project with an aim to prepare a pool of young advocates to take part in current and future activities of the Palestinian Centre for Rapprochement between People (PCR).
The project provides a civil-based platform for young Palestinians to use in their struggle for freedom against the Israeli Occupation of Palestine.
Trainees will be potential candidates for speaking tours and international youth exchange programs.
The YAP is part of the Action for Peace and Justice and Capacity building efforts that PCR has as a major part of its goals and objectives.
During the project, five training courses were held. The courses were basic ones as planned for the first stage of the year number 1. More advanced training will be given in stage two.
Evaluation session was held after each course in order to overcome problems and avoid mistakes made in stage one in the second stage.
View of the Web Design Class inthe YAP project Suggested changes include session length and frequency. The sessions were 2 hours each. Some were twice a week and other were one time per week only. Most of the trainees suggested having two sessions per week with slightly longer sessions.
In the first stage, trainees learned basic issues about Human Rights including the Universal declaration of Human Rights and the Palestinian basic law and the court system in Palestine.
Some of the participants joined the Activists Summer Training Camp organized by PCR, sponsored by the Quakers office in Jerusalem, in July.
During the camp, local and International participants received training in nonviolence civil-based resistance and participated in peaceful protests in Beit Sahour.
The experience in this camp made it evident that training is needed for young Palestinians. Some of the camp participants were involved in PCR for more than two years and others were new. With no doubt, the performance and attitude of the participants who were more involved in PCR were much better than those who have recently joined.
Part of the training was a trip at the annexation wall built around Bethlehem. Surprisingly, fifteen out of twenty Palestinians who live in Bethlehem did not know that the wall cuts through the Bethlehem area especially on the Rachel Tomb side.
Most of them believed the Israeli story that the wall is built on the Green line, the internationally recognized border for the lands occupied by Israel in 1967.
Although the Communication Skills training was a little interrupted because of final examinations and the Activists Summer Camp, yet trainees had a chance to learn better ways for good communication. For example, active listening was a skill that almost none of the participants had. Yet, students learned how to hold a good interactive conversation, a skill very much needed in advocacy. Most importantly, trainees learned how to respect other people’s opinion and that respecting other opinion does not necessarily mean that you agree to it.
The Advocacy Skills training was conducted in August-September and was attended by 10 trainees. In the course of the training, trainees discussed core issues of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict regarding the origins of the conflict and the various stages it passed.
In addition, trainees were exposed to the political structures and the ideologies of both the Palestinian and the Israeli political parties.
The Web Pages Design training provided the trainees with skills to build basic web pages. The training was conducted in a computer lab of the Arab Orthodox Charitable Society in Beit Sahour.
This training was followed with training in media skills. Basic training in writing short news reports and how to give interviews was given. Trainees also learned how to edit audio segments in order to use them in radio programs. The trainees will be given a chance to join the International Middle East Media Center (IMEMC).
The second stage of the program will start in January of 2007 if the funds were received on time. Stage one was delayed for two months because no funds were available on the planned time.
Oxfam-GB has kindly funded Stage 1 of this project,
We need your support to continue with the program.
