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Centre for Youth and Children - Shatila
Name of Organisation: Center for Youth and Children - Shatila
Address: Shatila Camp
P.O.Box: 25/136 Beirut
Telephone: + 961 3 974672
Fax: + 961 1 704325
Website: www.cycshatila.org
Contact name: Mahmoud Abbas Abu Mjahed
Organisation of Child-to-Child Activities
CtC activities started in 1997 through a training workshop about the approach hosted by ARC and then with the help of organisations experienced in this field. Now the program is run by a children committee of 5 who participated in a number of workshops and courses related to Child’s rights and CtC, along with how to become a community facilitator with UNESCO. And regarding the health topic, we have overstepped the old concept started by Dr. David Morly focusing on health as the basis of the approach to a more holistic health educational cultural socially and behavioral approach. As to the funders they are Save the Children Sweden, UNICEF, Hopping foundation and CYC foundation.
Beneficiaries of the Activities
Many children, youth, adolescents, adults from parents and local community come to the centre for different activities such as the weekly activity for children. Fifty boys and girls participate in the centre’s activities such as the educational and entertaining club, the library, computer, workshops and the artistic and sports activities. They include tens of youth especially the ones included in the yearly plan where the local community, all ranges and age groups participate such as the freedom race that include 500 participants (both genders) divided into 3 age categories: 9-12years , 13-15 years and 16 and above. There are also the children’s summer activities, along with 2 summer camps for children and youth organised usually in the mountains and include about 150 boys and girls, not to forget the awareness campaigns and cleanliness in the camp to which parents participate and the periodical meetings with parents .
On the other hand we also have awareness circles about inclusion in the community and participation, non-discrimination, and working against violence, smoking and delinquency.
Children’s Participation
Through participation and working with parents and the centre at all levels, and following up the child’s problems in the school or inside his/her family, through visits to their house and school. As for the children’s participation, training is conducted through four yearly workshops about child’s rights and the CtC approach that includes an essential component, the six steps, which we use in our planning and projects conducted with children. Then children apply the six steps on a project implemented after the workshop, but this doesn’t mean it works out well all the time. Along with the administrative committee made up of youth between 15-24 years old who design the yearly planning projects and cooperate in taking decisions, we have the activities committees working in the centre. We also run an expanded weekly meeting on Saturday where we discuss all projects, programs and suggestions presented by the administrative committee or the participants. Fifteen-year-old youth and above participate in the administrative committee yearly elections. I must mention that all activities and work groups are for both genders; any activity where one of the genders will not participate is not done.
Health in and out of School
The centre give the change to learning as a basis for developing knowledge, personality, self expression, creativity and invention, through a number of opportunities given to the centre’s members to participate in the activities, insuring that doing something wrong is a lesson and not a crime, running projects or implementing suggestions by themselves.
At the end of each workshop, we follow up a certain project through which we use the CtC approach including the six steps, whether a cleanliness or tree-planting campaign project in the camp, or fixing a village road during summer camp. We evaluate the experience and study the lessons learned.
We also have the literal teaching inside the centre, using the computer and cartoons, along with help given by older students to younger students in studying, or children reading stories in the library to younger children, and teaching drawing and other things.
We have mentioned that we run a program in conjunction with UNICEF and the learning committee of UNRWA called “school support for children with potential of failure or drop-out”. Along with the enhancing lessons the centre gives for free to students, we have periodical visits to schools on one hand and parents on the other, and then we invite parents, administrators, and teachers to meetings in the centre to talk about teaching and children, in order to change the academic teaching operation into a community learning-teaching operation … for the third year in a row we are still working on this project that has had a little progress, but needs more effort still.
Through periodical meetings and writing annual and periodical reports for the centre’s activities, funding and spending, and the centre’s views, programs and visions for people. The number is not more than 40-50 people. However, youth component is higher.
Monitoring and Evaluation of Child-to-Child Activities
We also involve children and youth in any project or evaluation, but that doesn’t mean we succeed, we are still at the beginning.
Training Activities
We train children between 10-13 years and 14-18 years along with the participation of some school directors and helping in training about child rights issues, participation, citizenship, and gender, and facilitation. A group of facilitators from the centre conduct the training, along with help from institutions and individuals. The workshop ends in choosing a specific subject to work on later, benefiting from the six steps during choosing, planning, implementing and evaluation.
Use of Child-to-Child Materials
We use the training manual and training pack published in Arabic by ARC, along with the papers distributed in former workshops. There is the periodical magazine entitled “Aklamona” (our pens) published by the centre’s youth. They write the articles and work on the publication of the magazine and it’s free. And we have reports from environmental, educational and health workshops we held.
Date: 2005
Source: Center for Youth and Children - Shatila
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