Tishreen Launches Young Political Leadership Project

The Young Political Leadership Project aims to encourage citizen’s engagement in participatory governance and increase civil society’s representation in municipal discussions and decision making processes, as well as to raise awareness to citizen’s needs through collective action on the local level. This will be done through engaging Young Political Leaders (YPL) in local democratic practices and building their roles and ability of gaining “hands on experience” in community organizing. In addition, we aim to increase their presence in local democratic governance, with the aim to advance the society in the Triangle, based on the values of democracy, pluralism, and mutual responsibility.

Project Beneficiaries: The project will provide intensive training to an estimated 30-35 aspiring Young Political Leaders, between the age groups of 25-35 (YPL), professionals and activists from Three cities in the triangle region, over a period of 18 months. The rationale of the project is to develop YPL skills, capabilities and knowledge about their political and civic rights, which will enable them to become agents of civic engagement. This will be done by integrating youth voices in issues that local communities face, while promoting their participation in the local government decision making process, focusing on the prevention of violence, advancing education, dealing with housing and planning rights. The first stage of the project will include formation of the project steering committee, recruitment of YPL participants, preparation and development of the training material, and afterwards leading the training. In the second phase, Tishreen consultants will conduct professional mentoring, provide support and guidance for the YPL to ensure the greatest success in implementation of mapping of three cities in the triangle region in cooperation with local council members, to identify the citizen’s needs and develop three intervention work plans that reflects the need of each city and its residents.

The project will include two phases: The First Phase Include: Training of the YPL and will include knowledge acquisition and skills acquisition. The Second Phase Include: Identifying specific needs of each city through mapping the issues of concern and priority needs (planning and housing, increase of violence, economic issues, education) and implement intervention work plans, which include working with local council representatives, party members and political activists. On a parallel level, public engagement campaigns will support YPL to implement the intervention work plans in their communities with support with citizens from the Traingle Region.

The project’s objectives are the following ones:

(1) To identify and involve activists from the local community, with relevant knowledge and skills to become effective agents of change in their communities, increasing their ability to participate in government processes.

Success will be determined by our capacity to involve 30-35 participants (in the age groups: 25-35) in the project, for a duration of 18 months.

Success will be determined by the completion of the training program and upon the successful implementation of the intervention workplans and the public engagement campaigns. (2) To support participants in organizing their capacities and executing their ideas, while  working as a team, to become more independent in initiating actions for change.