Agents of Change

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  Rashed El Gayeb, Bahrain The Democracy and Human Rights Club

  Rashed is the vice president at Hewar Society and a journalist at the political affairs department (Parliamentary affairs and NGOs) at Albilad Bahraini newspaper. Previously he was a journalist at Alayam Bahraini newspaper where he established and supervised the weekly youth section.

  His project "Democracy and human rights club" aimed at raising awareness and training young people on the concepts of democracy, human rights and lobbying with a focus on youth affairs. In addition the project aimed to facilitate the cooperation between the participants and existing constitutional institutions such as the parliament, the Shura Council, the Constitutional Court, government, political associations and NGOs. Through his project participants learned about the constitutional institutions of Bahrain and the process for developing laws and policies. They also cooperated with parliamentarians to draft youth-related policies. The participants were able to submit their recommendations to the Ministry of Education to modify some sections of the curriculum about citizenship and the ministry approved these suggestions and changed the curriculum.

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  Ahmed Haroon, Egypt Restoring the Green Colour

  Ahmed is a social activist who is currently working in the field of marketing. He has been involved in numerous social and voluntary work, of which he has organized some of them. He also participated in many projects, symposiums, and conferences with non-governmental organisations, student clubs, and governmental entities. Ahmed is currently seeking to widen his social activities to help more people.

  "Restoring the Green Colour" (RGC) is a social movement that aims at developing and improving society by saving the environment, spreading education, increasing public facilities, and conserving energy. The project's main activity is to carry out awareness programmes to increase people's knowledge about those issues and how to take postive action towards these issues through advertisements, planting activities, educational programmes and more.

  RGC was able to increase its circle of influence through its specially-designed website. RGC worked with many entities to distribute more than 5,000 brochures in two universities and more than 1,200 others in 4 cultural centers and many cafes. It also distributed more than 6,000 bookmarks among university students, and helped in empowering a recycling activity of some associations. After the success of the first phase of the project, RGC is now determined to establish the project on a wider basis with more entities.

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  Ahmed Mustafa, Egypt Our Health in our Meal

  Ahmed holds a masters degree in media from South Valley University and currently working towards having his doctoral degree from Assiut University in the field of mental picture of international non-governmental institutions.

  "Our Health in our Meal" project aims at increasing awareness of the residents of an Egyptian local village with the importance of the healthy nutrition and components of a complete healthy meal for every age group and sick people as well as the bad eating habits, targeting both women and young girls.

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  Asmaa Abdel Gawad, Egypt Kick AIDS Out

  Asmaa is a 6th year medical student at Al-Azhar University and has been in the volunteering work since 2003, tackling with her friends a variety of public health issues, with a focus on sexuality and HIV/AIDS.

  In August 2008, she participated in the World Youth Congress in Quebec as one of the mini-grant winners who received a scholarship to attend this international conference.

  Despite the fact that there are a lot of programs and campaigns which work on HIV/AIDS, Asmaa sees that her project "Kick HIV/AIDS Out" doesn't only focus on training and capacity building for people working in the HIV/AIDS field, but exceeds that to positively supporting those living with HIV/AIDS and sending them practical messages that state "We are with you"; especially since they are facing discrimination and stigma, she considers her project as a step towards changing this attitude.

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  Youmna El Khattam, Egypt Be The Change

  Youmna is currently a senior student at the Faculty of Management and Technology at the Arab Academy for Science and Technology, studying Financial Management and Accounting. Youmna has been a volunteer in different Youth Development related activities and initiatives since 2006. She has participated in different events locally and internationally such as the 4th Arab Youth forum that was held in Alexandria, the International iEARN Youth Summit in Cairo as well as the Global Media Forum organizes by the DW-TV in Germany. She is currently a member in Siraj for Youth leadership and Development program, Save the Children, as well as Namaa for Sustainable Development an incubated project at Nahdet El Mahrousa NGO.

  Youmna's project "Be the change" is a capacity building program for the volunteers of iEARN program (an international education and resources network) in order to transfer the knowledge they gained to school students participating in the iEARN program in different parts of Egypt. Through her project, Youmna was able to train 30 volunteers in IT, Media & PR, Fundraising, Facilitation & Logistics as well as creating Fundraising and Media & outreach strategic plans for the iEARN and action plans for two major projects of iEARN (YouthCAN and MDG).

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  Ameeneh Yaqoob, Jordan My Environment, My World

  Ameeneh holds a diploma in English Language from Zarqa College in Jordan. She worked as a senior training coordinator in CARE International as well as an assistant at the Jordanian-Danish Dialogue Center for youth in addition to other organizations. Ameeneh had the chance of participating at different events; locally, regionally and internationally such as Fikr Conferences and the Arab Youth forum.

  Her project: "My Environment, My World" aims at raising awareness about the environment through direct visits to clean and plant flowers and small trees in 6 public gardens within 3 different governorates in Jordan.

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  Mazin Khalil, Palestine For A Different Vision

  Mazin holds a bachelor degree in Computer Science and a diploma in Education. He has been engaged with many local and international NGOs in the Gaza Strip which target youth, women and children. He volunteered with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) as a Project Coordinator at the "Summer Games 2008" which is the biggest project of its kind in the Gaza Strip. Mazin also volunteered with SHAREK Youth Forum in Gaza as a United Nations Volunteer and with the UNRWA in the Gender Initiative Program. Mazin is also one of the founders of Palestine Youth committee that aims at encouraging Palestinian youth to participate in civil activities.

  His project "For a different vision" aims at encouraging cross-cultural dialogue through conducting six international meetings via video conference targeting six youth groups from the Gaza Strip, where each group consisted of 20 youth members. These groups were linked with another six youth groups from five countries (Canada, USA, Sweden, Italy, Mexico, and Austria) to break the isolation that Palestinian youth live with daily in the Gaza Strip, and to create a space of learning of other cultures and world civilization.

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  Samer Abu Eisha, Palestine Wall Painting for Jerusalem

  Samer holds a BA degree in Mass Media and Communication and currently lives in Jerusalem. He has participated in a large number of youth exchange programs and volunteer work, training courses and different social activities that made him believe that he could be a very effective element in his country. Last year, Samer won a mini-grant with Youth for Change with his project "Wall Painting for Jerusalem".

  His project consisted of a 3 meters by 3 meters wall drawing with the participation of a group of Palestinian artists from various age groups where they were able to express their different ideas, the main concerns of the Palestinians living in Jerusalem and how they view the Old City of Jerusalem and the people living in it.

  Another part of the project was another wall drawing of a similar size, and was placed in the courtyard of the Damascus Gate which is considered a very special main entrance of the old town's center. They also brought special equipment, paint colors and other supplies so that people can participate in and express their views through the drawing. This event was very unusual for Jerusalemites, and was able to break the normal routine of being occupied, not only just by drawing on the wall but also the participation of the Task Force for Folk Arts "Nahavand" where people made their Dabka dance playing different instruments.

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  Rafat Khalifa, Palestine Youth and children for development and change

  Rafat has a computer maintenance & networking diploma. He works in the electronic archiving department at the Arab Bank and is involved with several local organizations working with youth in Ramallah.

  His Project "Youth and children for development and change" aims at building the capacity of youth through training workshops and including them in voluntary activities. Through his project, Rafat was able to conduct capacity building training for around 35 youth on the concepts of democracy, human rights, leadership as well as the necessary skills to work as volunteers. The participants also volunteered in several youth camps to enforce the concepts and skills they have learned.

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  Fayssal Mahjoubi, Morocco The Environment is our Responsibility

  Fayssal describes himself as a "humanist working with youth in the area of development and environmental protection". He has also participated in different local and international events, forums and activities.

  His project "The Environment is our Responsibility" aims at raising awareness about the environment with a focus on children and youth. Through his project, Fayssal was able to use artwork as a means of awareness through creating 4 wall drawings and conducting drawing sessions for children on the theme of environment. He also organized events in youth camps to discuss environmental issues and challenges as well as encourage them to plant trees and clean certain areas in these camps.

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  Nabil Chemli, Tunisia Peer Education for Youth Leadership and HIV/AIDS Prevention

  Nabil is a youth activist on the HIV/AIDS prevention, who graduated from pharmacy in Tunisia in 2006. He started as a volunteer with the Tunisian Association against STIs/AIDS – Sousse Section, and then became a youth coordinator. After getting some experience he joined a national network, Y-PEER Tunisia. Once he successfully attended the Y-PEER training of trainer (TOT) of peer educator in Bosnia and Herzegovina, he became a Focal Point and meaningfully helped the development of the network, co-organized and co-facilitated the first TOT in Tunisia. Nabil's genuine interest in the international development of the HIV/AIDS prevention allowed him to get a nine-month internship in London with the MTV Staying Alive campaign. His involvement in international events and workshops such as the Global Forum on ICT in Geneva and the "YLVP, Young Leaders Visitor Program" in Sweden allowed him to scale up his interpersonal and leadership skills. Currently, Nabil is working with UNFPA, United Nations Population Fund in Tunisia as a youth program assistant.

  Nabil's project "Peer Education for Youth Leadership and HIV/AIDS Prevention" is part of Y-Peer Tunisia which is a network that promotes youth and adolescent sexual and reproductive health and rights, by using peers as a main communication for behavior change tools. His project aimed at strengthening young people to prevent themselves and their peers from HIV/AIDS.

  The project's key achievements was conducting three peer education trainings where 49 young scouts were trained in Bizerte, 18 young members of the Tunisian association Against STIs/AIDS – Sousse Section, and 11 peer educators from the SCORA team (IFMSA Tunis) were trained in the sex workers peer education.

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  Amal Al-Yaheeri, Yemen Combating AIDS in the rural community

  Amal is a graduate of Faculty of Arts & Linguistics in Thamar University from Yemen. She has been involved in the Yemeni development field since 2001, as a trainer, researcher and consultant and is currently a community service program manager at SGH.

  Amal has also participated in several workshops, seminars and conferences on a local and regional level. Her project "Combating AIDS in the rural community" aims at building the capacity of a group of youth to work on the issues of HIV/Aids as well as increasing awareness about HIV/Aids in the rural communities. Through her project she was able to train 24 young volunteers to raise awareness about how to prevent HIV/Aid as well as organize several awareness raising workshops targeting youth and older groups in the rural community.

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  Saddam Motea, Yemen Kawader for Development

  Sadam has a BA in computer Engineering from Cairo University and is currently working as a system engineer in Sanaa. He is considered one of the oldest bloggers in Yemen and is a member of many global organizations, communities, groups and projects such as TakingITGlobal, Idealist, Earth charter, IYP, Youth action, voice of youth forum- UNICEF.

  His project "Kawader for Development" which aims at building capacities and creating employment for development has succeeded in bringing in a number of organizations in Yemen to support the employment database that was created for Yemeni youth to facilitate their search for finding jobs or volunteer opportunities and it is one of the first youth-led projects in this domain targeting both males and females in the urban and rural communities.