Generations for Peace Empowering Youth Leaders in the West Bank

Meeghan Zahorsky, the Generations For Peace Institute's MA scholar at Georgetown University who is studying on the highly acclaimed Conflict Resolution Programme, has just completed on a three-day monitoring and evaluation field visit to witness first hand the remarkable impact the initiative is having in the West Bank.

Meeghan was working closely with the certified Generations For Peace Pioneer, Mohammad Al Assedeh, whose work in the field has been prolific since he was trained at the Generations For Peace camp held in December 2009 in Amman. Mohammad works with Generations For Peace’s local implementing partner, OneVoice Palestine, which is part of the international OneVoice grassroots movement. His team of Certified Generations For Peace Pioneers and delegates is currently in the middle of an ambitious eight-month cycle of delivering key Generations For Peace programmes (Working With Children and Youth; and Sport Programme for Children and Youth) across nine cities in the West Bank. Generations For Peace’s innovative training curriculum is empowering OneVoice Palestine to inspire youth leaders across the region and promote the use of sport as a tool for development and peace.

HRH Princess Sarah Al-Feisal, President of Generations For Peace, outlined the core objectives of Meeghan’s three-day visit to the West Bank:‘This week was an excellent opportunity for Meeghan to go out into the field and see the realities of dealing with different forms of conflict in diverse and often volatile communities. Mohammad’s programmes exemplify what our organisation is trying to achieve. By the time this cycle is complete, he and his colleagues will have cascaded their world-class training to 225 new leaders of youth, and more than 3,000 children will have been involved in the sports programmes. That is a truly remarkable achievement: one that will have a genuine and tangible effect on the lives of people in these communities.’

Meeghan travelled to Ramallah, Nablus and Bethlehem. The field visit was a vital step in Generations For Peace’s journey towards connecting its pioneering research with its practitioners in conflict zones in Africa, Asia, Europe and the Middle East. Meeghan collected feedback and statistics from all participants, and her findings will help Generations For Peace ascertain where its programmes can be developed and adapted to increase their impact and sustainability.

Commenting on her visit to the West Bank, Meeghan Zahorsky said:‘This trip was a great chance for me to go into the field and put my knowledge and experience into practice, and to learn lessons that will be invaluable for my research. It has been wonderful to see how much impact Mohammad and his team have achieved in a relatively short space of time and I hope that some of the findings we pull together from this field visit will help us to maintain that impact. Generations For Peace is changing this community for the better: we want to make sure it continues.’

Meeghan observed Generations For Peace’s groundbreaking curriculum in action at this week’s activities, based on the Working With Children and Youth programme. Overall, the Generations For Peace curriculum consists of six innovative modules, taught via a combination of classroom sessions and highly interactive practical sports sessions: Sport and Peace; Peace Building; Working With Children and Youth; Train the Trainer; Advocacy and Partnerships; and Learning Facilitator Guide.

Mohammad Al Assedeh said:‘We were very proud to welcome Meeghan to our region and to share the pioneering work we are doing with the sport for development and peace community. We hope that our achievements here can make a powerful contribution to the field. Generations For Peace Pioneers and delegates are an ever-growing family with an ever-more important role to play in conflict resolution. My colleagues and I are proud to be part of that family.’

For more information, contact:info@generationsforpeace.com

As a service to our readers, Around the Rings will provide verbatim texts of selected press releases issued by Olympic-related organizations, federations, businesses and sponsors.

These press releases appear as sent to Around the Rings and are not edited for spelling, grammar or punctuation.

Your complete source of news about the Olympics is www.aroundtherings.com, for subscribers only.