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Youth Program
In autumn 2002, CCRR encouraged some youths who knew the center from
different school and after school activities to form the CCRR Youth
Committee. The CCRR’s Youth Committee meets every Friday (the day off
from school) on the premises of the CCRR, putting together its own
schedules, and implementing its own ideas.
The Youth Committee is quite active and formed a coordinating group in
spring 2003. The group meets every other Friday morning and prepares the
regular meetings, getting help from CCRR staff if needed. In June 2003,
the CCRR Youth Committee participated in an art contest organized by the
Ministry of Youth and Sport. The CCRR Youth Committee won a prize for
the best musical play which they had written, rehearsed, and performed
on their own.
All activities of the group are linked to the leadership idea promoted
by the concept of civil peace education, making the CCRR Youth
Committee an education and civil engagement program. CCRR believes that
leadership is the ability to influence people and situations through
one’s own behavior. In order to enable the youth to live up to the above
definition, empowerment is the main goal of the program: The youth
should be able to improve relations between their friends, at school and
within their families. Moreover, the program seeks to involve
Palestinian Youth in the decision making processes that affect their
lives by allowing free discussions between the participants of the
meetings, which they are supposed to moderate themselves.
The Youth Committee constitutes a high priority for CCRR because its
approximately 50 members help broadening the center’s support in
Bethlehem. Furthermore, the Youth Committee is a valuable reference
group for CCRR’s activities: the center can discuss or try out new ideas
and methods with a small group that is familiar with the center before
implementing new programs and ideas.
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