Tartous - Sana
The “Participatory Action Research” program organized by the Ministry of Culture in cooperation with the United Nations Children’s Fund “UNICEF” seeks to enhance the role of young people in building and developing society by working on four axes: “creating job opportunities, supporting scientific research, mental health and the issue of sexual harassment.”
The formed participatory research team researched at the Arab Cultural Center in Tartous governorate the results of its work, which spanned over several months, during which it held meetings and discussions with a number of young people between the ages of “18 and 25” within the city of Tartous to be an initial base and a future work plan for them in the program to draw the right strategy. For ways to build a conscious and healthy society according to those in charge of it.
The Director of Culture, Kamal Badran, indicated in a speech during the evaluation team’s meeting the necessity of identifying the social problems faced by the Syrian youth, with presenting methodological proposals and appropriate solutions to them, indicating that the team consisted of 20 young men and women, five of whom worked on one of the program’s axes.
The administrative supervisor of the program in the governorate, Baha Muhanna, explained in a statement to SANA reporter that the program is the first of its kind at the level of Syria, where it was launched at the beginning of last March after the team was formed, and that Tartous was the first governorate in which work was implemented, indicating that the selection of topics was based on previous sessions. The project is with the youth of the team, who collected data in the field and coded it with presentation of the results and suggested steps for work in the next phase, which will be focused on seminars and dialogue sessions with young people under the titles “Media, Society and Awareness”.
Muhanna indicated that today's meeting is aimed at presenting the results of the research in front of the stakeholders, to begin the phase of harvesting the fruits of this participatory work with the end of the field work in it at the end of this November, to be an incentive for them to participate effectively and contribute to building society on objective, supportive and constructive scientific foundations.
On the axis of scientific research support, the coordinator responsible for it within the team, Younes Abbas, indicated that work is currently underway to establish an “advocacy” campaign with awareness sessions for university youth to study the idea of scientific research from various aspects and turn it into a practical and applicable project.
Ebaa Hassan, who is responsible for the issue of unemployment and creating job opportunities within the team, spoke about the results they reached, stressing that the awareness media work in the next stage is to empower the capabilities of young people while identifying success stories of young experiences that were able to provide job opportunities of their own.
Nour Khaddour, a member of the sexual harassment axis team, indicated that the absence of a supportive environment to talk about this topic is the main reason for its spread, in addition to the absence of deterrent laws and the lack of psychological counselors to spread awareness in schools.
Fatima Hussain