2009
Launching into the world of technology
Youth Leadership Development Foundation has entered the world of technology with the aim of achieving a more effective role for young men and women in Yemeni society by training them on basic skills that are compatible with modern global developments in the electronic field, enhancing youth capacity building to keep pace with the modern world , and being able to gain many opportunities. Youth Leadership Development Foundation has shown a great ability to reduce many sensitive issues through the camera, which is an innovative thing that the Foundation has adopted to raise community awareness about a sensitive issue of extremism and terrorism, and to know the reasons behind the involvement of young people in terrorist activities, and address them to promote peace building in society.
Youth Leadership Development Foundation began integrating children under the age of 18 in its activities, with the aim of enhancing children’s awareness of their rights in Yemen, raising the level of leadership and life skills of male and female students, empowering girls, enhancing their skills, reducing their exposure to violence and early marriage, reducing the phenomenon of school dropouts, returning the dropouts to continue their education, and addressing such pervasive issues in society that accumulate a threat to the children’s future . The children were trained within frameworks based on the principles of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and the psychological, social and educational contexts that should be provided for children to guarantee their rights. The Foundation contributed in helping girls to return to their school, including providing assistance to girls with limited income. The Foundation has launched an "Awareness Campaign of the Risks of Early Marriage", using education and slogans on gender-based violence and gender through the Youth Advisory Board.
Youth Leadership Development Foundation participated in the regional conference “The Conference on Activating the Role of Civil Society in Education in the Middle East” on May 25th, 2009, which was organized by the Global Campaign for Education, the Young Leadership Development Foundation and Oxfam Novib of the Netherlands. In which a number of educational leaders, researchers, academics and those interested in Bahrain, Egypt, Algeria, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Tunisia, UAE, Turkey, in addition to Yemen participation. Policy and resource issues related to achieving EFA goals across the Middle East were discussed, and the Yemeni Coalition for Education for All (YCEA) was established on Augus 3, 2009 as a diverse and independent coalition of voluntary community organizations, teachers syndicates, unions, and training centers, etc., each has legal responsibility for its members, and works to unite the civilian society in the common pursuit of the right to quality basic education for all, with a focus on publicly funded education. YCEA is registered as a non-profit legal entity according to Sana’a Declaration which was issued by the Arab Coalition for Education. The Yemeni coalition works to promote education as a basic human right, and to prepare popular opinion for the government and the international community to fulfill its promises in general, especially “basic education is compulsory and free with attention to the quality of education for all people, especially children, women, people with special needs and all the disadvantaged.” The coalition conducted national campaigns and local coalitions to raise awareness at the governorate level.
The Foundation was able to raise participation in each of the social and political aspects of society, by shedding light on the youth segment, so that they have an audible voice and a prominent role in the political process, and have a space to express their needs. And it worked to promote gender balance, with the aim of bridging the gender gap between males and females in the electoral fields and political participation.
Youth Leadership Development Foundation believes that human rights are a way of life and behavior before they are regulations, laws and charters, and that the right is a right for every individual in society regardless of gender, tribe, race and religion. Therefore, it has taken human rights education as a path in its professional and educational activity since 2003. As a result of its importance, in 2009, it prepared the training manual in human rights and derived the general framework and content of the training manual in the field of human rights from lectures and training exercises in the field of human rights education, which is used in the program to develop the skills of youth of civil society organizations in the field of human rights, as well as from the manual "The participants of the International Human Rights Training Program of the Canadian organization (EQUITAS), a leading human rights education organization, and from websites on the references and mechanisms of the United Nations, and to benefit from its tools in line with Islamic culture and the nature of conservative Yemeni society. This guide is a fruit of the success achieved by the Youth Leadership Development Foundation for five consecutive years.
The Foundation has a major role in enhancing the capacities of civil society organizations and youth initiatives. During 2009, it was able to build the capacities of organizations and initiatives to direct work on combating corruption, integrating issues related to combating corruption in organizations’ programs, and clarifying the role of youth civil society organizations in enhancing youth awareness about population issues and reproductive health. It raised the awareness of emerging civil society organizations about human rights teachings, developed their communication skills in human rights, and gave them the opportunity to participate in discussions, exchange information and experiences on a large scale, and strengthen monitoring in the field of human rights in Yemen.
During the same year, the Foundation prepared the electronic directory for NGOs, e-directory, by collecting all the names, numbers and addresses of civil society organizations, to facilitate access to their information and enhance the process of communication between them, and managed to register 114 organizations in the directory designed on a website, which is still documented on the Google platform until now.
On April 17th , 2009, Youth Leadership Development Foundation witnessed the graduation of 164 male and female students from the Foundation - the Youth Economic Development Center, the International Language Center for Girls, at the Shawkani Hall in the Police Officers Club in Sana'a. During the ceremony, which was attended by a large number of representatives of international and local civil society institutions and a large number of invitees, Mrs. Salam Al-Shehri, Director of Programs and Activities at the Youth Leadership Development Foundation, gave a speech in which she described the ceremony as a ceremony to welcome the various fields of life to the graduates of the Foundation. She added that the Foundation has produced many young women and young men who are qualified in the fields of computers, languages, human rights and leadership skills. She added that the Foundation had previously celebrated the graduation of 3,000 qualified young men and women with multiple skills that helped them to enter the field of life and their weapons were science, knowledge and self-confidence, stressing that most of the graduates entered the joints of civil society and the various administrative bodies of the public and private sectors, as a contribution from the Foundation to community building so that it focuses on its programs on raising the developmental level of young people to combat financial and administrative corruption and involve them in all public activities, in order to supplement the scene with a qualified number of young people who are capable of actively participating in order to achieve social justice and sustainable development. She concluded her speech by thanking everyone who was behind the achievements of the youth and the Foundation, she also appealed to the graduates to work for Yemen, as they chose for themselves the slogan "For you, Yemen," because it needs them. In the same context, the ceremony continued with many distinguished activities, which express the extent to which the youth benefited from the programs they studied. One of the most important parts of the ceremony was the youth board through which the graduates presented their message to Yemen as they wanted to tell the world that Yemen is a country that believes in freedom of opinion and equity between men and women, besides that it is a country where there is no place for violence, abuse and terrorism. That painting embodied a group of young people holding in their hands papers on which they wrote their message to Yemen and the world alike. At the end of the ceremony, the Foundation’s graduates were honored with graduation certificates from the programs they studied, such as the Young Women Leaders Qualification Program, from which 92 girls graduated in the fields of media and NGO management, In addition to the Young Leaders Preparation Program, 50 young men and women graduate annually, qualifying them to build leadership skills , self-confidence and help them play an active roles in the local community, in addition to the Executive Secretarial Program and the two-year English language program.
