Mosaytby-Balamand st. kayat bld.
Beirut
Lebanon
- Youth and education
• Structure : 20 staff members and the director, partners : Italian peace association, UNICEF and Welfare association, CYC foundation in Sweden, Les enfants de l'espoir (France)
• 130 000 dollars approx. per year
• Partners, individual donors and Canadian embassy and French Association
• Education - early child and children ; community development ; gender equality : through educational activities, protection classes, advocacy. Association's projects involve our partners and individual volunteers.
• Child and Human Rights: The CYC advocates, teaches, and practices child and human rights, under the International Child and Human Rights Convention. Children and youth are taught what their human rights are, and how best to fight for them. In the process our young people learn the importance of respecting the rights of others. The CYC emphasises gender issues, equality, and the non-discriminative right to literacy.
• The Child-to-Child Teaching Methodology: The CYC is committed to a child-to-child method of education. We aim to strengthen the bonds between the age groups through mutual learning; children and youth learn both together, and from one another. The child-to-child teaching methodology is practiced on a daily basis, at our centre, and requires children and youth to share and delegate responsibility. Both adult staff members, and the CYC’s young people regularly attend external workshops on the child-to-child teaching methodology, to reinforce and update the application of this successful method.
• Identity and Belonging: The CYC recognises the importance of identity and belonging, and works to confirm the Palestinian identity. We have a responsibility to assist the Palestinian refugee children and youth of Shatila in understanding their current status, and the causes of their social and economic hardship. These young people must be allowed to learn their history, in order that they can understand their present, and dialectically arrive at feasible means of building their future.
• Integration and Tolerance: The CYC encourages, and emphasises the importance of integration within the camp, and within Lebanese society as a whole. The CYC also promotes exposure to other international identities and cultures, and continues to participate in cultural exchanges outside of the Middle East. The CYC’s children and youth represent a variety of Arab countries, including many children who are natives of the host country – Lebanon. The CYC regularly receives visitors and volunteers from all over the world.
• Protection classes : The CYC offers, to children out of school between 8 and 14 years old, basic educational classes and protective awareness and word to enhance capacity building and talent development.
• Kindergarten : The CYC offers to children between 3 and 5 years old primary education, care and different activities (cited below) to enhance educational and psychological development of the children .
• Art and Handcraft Classes: The CYC offers a handcraft training programme to early school-leavers, as well as general exercises in handcrafts and art to the CYC’s children and youth. Such activities are not normally catered for in UNRWA schools. Crucially the handcraft training programme provides some income, and a degree of financial independence, for early school-leavers.
• Cultural Exchanges: The CYC regularly receives visitors, and is involved in the organisation of various youth cultural exchanges. Many of the CYC’s children and youth have benefited from cultural exchanges abroad.
• Dance and Performance: The CYC’s dance group, The Nabke Team, trains weekly, and performs regularly inside and outside the camp. The Nabke Team performs traditional dances, as well as modern choreographies.
• Football: The centre’s talented football squad trains weekly, and participates in many minor competitions.
• Freedom Run:This annual event is an organised fun-run around Shatila camp, and is both an eagerly anticipated physical exercise and social exercise. People of all ages participate.In 2004, the fifth Freedom Race became the Freedom March. On the eve of the race the Israeli forces assassinated a Palestinian leader, Dr. Abdel Aziz Rantisi, in the Gaza Strip. The Freedom Race became a demonstration against Israeli aggression.
• Help with Homework: Local and foreign volunteers assist the children with their homework, and explain problems that may have been encountered with schoolwork. The CYC has a spacious and quiet library, conducive to learning, as well as classroom areas. Children are encouraged to use the library’s resources, and to take a committed attitude toward their studies. Foreign volunteers frequently provide help with English learning; the children and youth benefit from guidance from native speakers, as the school curriculum is in English.
• Recreational and Education Trips: The CYC endeavours to provide recreational and educational excursions outside of the camp, to the theatre, music concerts, cultural exhibitions, and similar. These trips are doubly important, as the children and youth of Shatila rarely have the opportunity to leave the camp.
• Summer Camps: Summer camps are held on an annual basis, at different locations within Lebanon. Summer camps are an opportunity for sports, arts, games, and extracurricular learning, all in a healthy outdoor environment. The importance and benefits of recreation, and holidays away, cannot be overestimated; this is especially true of the chance for disadvantaged children and youth to experience different surroundings.
• Workshops: The CYC attends and hosts multiple workshops each year. Typically, productive environments, workshops facilitate new ideas and knowledge. The practical nature of workshops enables the CYC’s older youths, to pass on the skills and knowledge they acquire at workshops, to the CYC’s younger members. Other workshops are designed specifically for the children.
The CYC is a long term based organization with community reach in the Shatila camp (Lebanon), we offer a diverse amount of activities to children with different background and work toward social inclusion, integration and capacity enhancing of children in need. Thourgh our community work we aim to reduce violence, enhance gender equality and raise environmental awareness. Since our foundation, the CYC has been working with the different communities in Shatila (Palestinians, Syrians and Lebaneses mostly) and has, therefore, an important place in the life of the communities.
We believe in the core values of the ALN network and in the cooperation it entails between the 41 countries. We believe in the need for social inclusion, raising awareness on inequalities, gender violence and environmental issues. It is those beliefs we share that motivated this demand to join the ALF Network.