How do you engage young people, and give them the opportunity to make a real difference in their local communities? How do you promote conflict transformation?
That’s the aim of our project UACTIV8, which gives young people a powerful platform through which they can respond to the urgent development needs of separated Palestinian communities.
About UACTIV8
Civil society organisations are playing an increasingly important role in developing local communities. However, they often lack the necessary skills to give their communities the support they need. UACTIV8 aims to bridge this skills gap.
Our vision is to strengthen civil society in Palestinian communities and promote peace building.
How can we achieve this? This EU co-funded programme helps partners to create and deliver citizen-led community empowerment. We support local people to negotiate for their own interests and needs as a way of transforming their own realities. Focused on young adults, the project model encourages experimentation, innovation and reflection.
Empowering young people
UACTIV8 helps young adults in particular to engage with and influence their communities. It connects them to resources and the experiences of others – giving them effective tools to transform themselves, their families, neighbourhoods and communities.
UACTIV8’s aims include:
- enabling community development and addressing challenges through innovation and creative actions
- bringing people together to share experiences
- encouraging volunteering
- developing the capacity of regional partner organisations
- developing a critical mass of young community activists.
How we're making a difference
- Creating a Young Community Leaders Network. We’re developing a network of 1,800 trained young community leaders in communities in Gaza, the West Bank, Nazareth, Naqab and Russaifeh in Jordan.
- Promoting community development. We plan to increase levels of social engagement and participation within and across communities via the work of young leaders, who will reach 300,000 residents in their community residencies.
- Encouraging a cross-community dialogue. We’re enabling a dialogue that addresses civil, gender and human rights issues and responsibilities, which will ultimately have a positive impact on the peace building.
- Empowering partners. We’re helping local partners to support sustained community development.