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WWW.BALADNAYOUTH.ORG EE----MAIL:MAIL: INFO@[email protected] Baladna News VOLUME 1, ISSUE 1 J U L Y 2 0 0 6 and creative potential and to engage tools such as photography, radio and Welcome!!! themselves in a full civic participation. video. It will aim at giving young Arab- From the beginning, Baladna Palestinians skills and resources to Welcome to the first issue of Baladna has created a special space for Arab- better advocate their projects, goals and News , the bi-monthly newsletter of Palestinian youth to meet and discuss views. In the longer term, the next step Baladna: Association for Arab questions unique to their experience as would be to create a national media Youth. Every issue we will be members of both a marginalized resource centre that would allow updating you with our ongoing minority and an oppressed nation. It is participants access to materials and activities, our achievements and our equipment all year round. plans for the future. Baladna is currently in its 5 th year of existence. Throughout this short Turn to page four for news time, the organization had managed to of our International overcome various difficulties and these Workcamps this summer!! last months have not been problem-free. Despite a particularly harsh financial situation during this academic year, Baladna achieved to establish several well-functioning Youth Groups nation-wide, to organize field visits, a Evaluation Time National Convergence on Gender and After 5 years of running the Youth trainings for both Leaders and Youth A youth group hard at work Leadership Project the time has also Groups. come for a thorough evaluation of our Within the Youth Group important to enable participants to make activities. Over the past 3 months, Project, Public Achievement is taking change in their communities and the Baladna staff and Leaders have been on more and more importance. We at aim of the Public Achievement Project working on analysing their current work Baladna think that it is vital for is to give the youths the means to and next year a restructuring of the youngsters to gain the knowledge, skills convey their needs to a wider public. Youth Project will be implemented, and tools required to work on issues in In the near future, Baladna will according to the conclusions of the their society, to express their cultural offer media trainings, using different evaluating team. Academic Year Ends With Public Achievement Festival The end of the annual Youth Group culmination of the Youth Groups’ rights. Project was the occasion of different work. Baladn’a Youth Group Project In the coming year we will be festivities at the Public Achievement In 2005-2006, 18 groups were Festival on 27 th May. established and led by graduates of our Over 250 Baladna members Leadership Development course (see gathered in Rahat for a day of page 3). workshops, music, dancing, debates and Dotted around the country in various presentations. places such as the Naqab, Haifa and All the youth groups and Nazareth, the groups met on a weekly leaders from different towns and cities basis and gave a total of 300 youths introduced their annual work and the (aged 14-17) the chance to participate, projects they had planned and learn and discuss different issues implemented in their local concerning them such as identity, the communities. importance of gender in Arab society, The festival was also the the family, democracy and human Youths gather for games and workshops at the Public Achievement Festival VOLUME 1, ISSUE 1 P A G E 2 Another Year of Successful Public Achievement Projects From March to May, Baladana’s the library was already refurbished, they interviewed the people whose Youth Groups work on a Public stocked and operational. house has been destroyed and took Achievement project that aims to Sara joined Baladna in order many pictures in order to present an empower them by giving tools for to develop new skills and knowledge exhibition in Lod, Rahat and Haifa. full civic participation. Furthermore, and also to meet people that believed in Public Achievement projects aim to the same dream as her: that Arab- encourage a move from passive Palestinians from Israel understand and Youth Group Field Trips learning in a classroom to actively know who they are and from where All year round, the youth groups engaging in the society. participate in different field visits. On the first April, 60 young people from Prpoject 1 Haifa, Jdaide, El Mker and Nazareth Sara Abu Syam, a Biology student at made a trip to Golan with a first study Ben Gourion University in Beersheba, visit in Berim, a village destroyed by has been a Youth Group leader with the IDF in 1949 Baladna for one year. There, the youngsters met M. Edmond Sara (20), became involved in Abu Hicham Endrawous, 80 years old, Baladna a year ago after having heard who explained them the history of his about its activities from her older village. The second part of this trip to brother who was already a member. the East led the youth groups to Golan The young girl wanted to know more Heights where they had an encounter about the association and became a Sara and her Youth Group in Rahat with the inhabitants and learned about regular reader of Shabab magazine the occupation and the annexation. then, last year, decided to take a more they come from in order to tell the real The second field visit drove active role and took part in the story of their homeland 100 High School students to Jerusalem Leadership training course. on 20th of April. They visited the After attending the Public Project 2 Alazariea area (a Palestinian Achievement training, she thought Another example of successful project neighborhood crossed by the Apartheid about running a project in order to help took place in Lod this year, a mixed wall). This study part was guided by her community. city in the centre of the country. Amar Zourba, he told the pupils about In Rahat, the teachers and students at A youth group led by Ruba the consequences of the wall on the school often complained about not Hamdan initiated a study visit to the Jerusalem is ‘daily life. The students having books. Sara and her Youth city and its destroyed houses. Many of then had a visit of the Old City: the Old Group decided to find a solution for the Lod Arab buildings has already been Market, the Al Aqsa Mosque, the pupils and their teachers to have these destroyed by the Israeli Police. The Church of Saint-Sepulchre and were educational tools at hand and came up houses were built many years ago taught about the history of the holy with the idea of a school library. without permission and the goal of the city. They also attended a play based In her town nobody believed Israeli government is clearly to make on Mahmoud Darwish poems at the that the young lady and her group could the Arabs inhabitants leave the city. National Palestinian Theatre and run such a successful project by The youth decided to gather received a lecture about the prisoners themselves, but they didn’t give up in material to create a testimony to what and the specific political situation of the face of this and, a few months later, happened and is still happening in Lod. Jerusalem since the wall has been built. Baladna invites Rim Banna On May 28 th , Baladna held local sponsorship, this year its annual benefit event: Rim was a success: about 500 Banna’s concert in Haifa. persons attended the event and The singer was accompanied we got support from the French at the guitar by her husband Cultural Centre. During the Leonid Alexeienko, musician evening, the first part of the and composer. scholarships were delivered to This concert helped to our Youth Leaders for all their fund Baladna’s activities by work during the academic year. receipts on tickets sale and Rim Banna in Haifa for Baladna’s annual benefit concert VOLUME 1, ISSUE 1 P A G E 3 successful youth leaders. Leadership Training Courses During the academic year, students take part in different workshops and study Each year, Baladna visits. offers university On May 17 th , the 60 students throughout Leadership Course participants the country a have visited unrecognized Leadership Training villages in the Naqab area. On Course in four 10 th of June, 60 students took different cities (Tel- part to a study trip to Jerusalem Aviv, Beersheba, organized by Baladna in Jerusalem and collaboration with IPCC ‘Field visits in West Haifa). (International Peace and The course Cooperation Center). The visit Bank or in introduces them to included an historical tour of leadership and identity Study visit in the holy city of Jerusalem the Old City and a less unrecognized concepts, improves their for the Leaders course participants ’traditional’ visit during which awareness about the society villages of Israel the participants the Wall and they live in and gives them the the Jewish settlements skills and tools required to and encounters surrounding Jerusalem. graduate and become between Arab- Palestinians from different areas are Encounter With Youth From the West Bank necessary to emphasize the In early June, 15 Baladna Palestinians in West Bank as The encounter also gave the common History.’ leaders from throughout the well as in Israel. opportunity to youth from both country made a trip to the sides of the Israeli separation Palestinian administrative wall to express themselves, to Participants in Ramallah capital to meet PCC learn from each other’s (Palestinian Peace Coalition) experiences and to get to know volunteers from different each other to take away pre- cities in the West Bank.