URI MENA Cultural Café- 21 Session
Last Saturday, 5th Sept. 2020, URI MENA Cultural Café was on “The contribution of young people in creating change.” The session was facilitated by Mr. Raed Qami, a social worker in the field of youth. We discussed the following themes:
– How we perceive the role of youth in creating change.
– Broader goals that implicate youth contribution in the process of change on both individual and group levels.
– The level of commitment we need to see in order to identify a process of change.
Major takeaways:
– Young people are powerful change agents. They can be a creative force and a dynamic source of innovation. We need to give them space to contribute to any change process.
– The culture that sees a young person as inferior to adults hinders young people’s participation in the change process.
– Many adults speak about youth empowerment, encouraging greater youth participation in decision-making process. However, in real life, they treat young people as irresponsible troublemakers; hence, they do not engage them in serious community issues.
– Youth issues need to be tackled by youth, we cannot tell them what they should or should not do, or what is good and bad for them.
– Youth excel in the fields of technology and modern communication; they can disseminate change quickly.
