Our Community, Our Responsibility
Co-founded by the European Commission and the British Council, UACTIV8 aims at creating a network of young community leaders who will inspire each other to bring positive social change in the separated Palestinian communities in Jordan, West Bank, Gaza and Nazareth.
Over the past two years of the project we have implemented a series of activities in cooperation with our partners. The implementing partner in Jordan is “Leaders of Tomorrow”. Throughout the duration of the project, we trained 1300 youth through “Training of Trainers” ToT on the project skills to become leaders in their communities, and to cascade to their local communities. This was in addition to eighteen Social Action Projects implemented within these communities. These Social Action Projects are intended to support community cohesion and local development where participants work together in order to deliver initiatives that benefit their community.
Activities during 2014-2015
Facilitator Development (Training of Trainers), August 2014
The second regional Facilitator Development training session was held in Amman, Jordan with the participation of 22 participants from Palestine, Jordan and Nazareth. The aim of the training of trainers (TOT) was to develop the skills, knowledge, attitudes and behaviours that are keys to promote social leadership in any society.
The role of the facilitators is to lead on training the target group of young adults and support them in planning and delivering their social action projects. The development of facilitators is part of the project’s contribution to the capacity building of partner organisations that will contribute to the sustainability of the project.
Community Activities
After developing a core group of 48 facilitators from partner organisations, the facilitators are to lead in implementing five cascade training of young leaders at local community level.
This includes carrying out community mapping for each participating community to identify problems to inform project planning and implementation. Consequently, this has contributed to delivering the training programme to 1800 young leaders to develop the skills, knowledge, attitudes and behaviours that are key to promoting social leadership in any society.
Social Action Projects (SAPs) – Examples from Jordan
Over the past two years, 6 Social Action Projects were implemented in Russaifeh Community, led by young leaders who live there. Examples of the projects the SAPs:
• ‘Our Environment, Our Responsibility’ - focuses on raising environmental awareness and volunteerism amongst the community. Russaifeh is an industrial area, and the environmental challenge is one of the major issues that the community suffers from.
• ‘Think of it!?’ - addresses both awareness and education through short movies. The young people will create short movies addressing the bad habits in societies and how to address them. These short movies would then be circulated through the different social media platforms.
• ‘Live in the Right Way’ - aims to train school students to build their capacity and provide them with basic life skills, and raise awareness among students in values such as diversity, tolerance and life skills.
Networking Event in Amman, May 2015
The aim of the networking event is to give the opportunity to further develop and strengthen the partnerships in the project and to maximise impact and ensure its sustainability. This was implemented through sharing experiences and best practices in mentoring and community development, with the participation of 25 participants from Nazareth, Jordan and other Palestinian communities.