This blog post is written by Yosr Amamou
Being a part of the Youth leader team is, and without any doubt, a once in a lifetime experience. The aim we are hired to achieve, us four female Scout volunteers from different countries and backgrounds, is around the Tunisian youth and how to sway a way into their empowerment.
As you might know, we are an international representation of the Future Leaders project that has been making change in Tunisia since its elaboration under the Tunisian Scouts (Les Scouts Tunisiens) and the Danish Scouts (KFUM-Spejderne i Danmark). Actually, the partnership is funded by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark through DUF (the Danish Youth Council ).
As a matter of a fact, The Young Voices forum is one of many events that The Future Leaders project is working on. This event is only about training teenagers around the age of 15-17. Three YV forums were programmed at the same time; one of them happened in Nabel and had Danish participants who only flew from Denmark to attend this forum. On the other hand, we Youth Leaders divided ourselves into 2 mixed pairs, so a pair of a Tunisian and a Dane went to Kairouan region and the other pair went to Gafsa. We worked on having interesting exchange interactions in all the YV forums with Danes communicating in English and Tunisian volunteers doing the translation.
In that event I witnessed sparkles and flames as I also witnessed passivity and apathy. I also witnessed emotions, laughs and goodbye tears. It is about a group of Tunisian teenagers who deeply wanted to strive for a better future and wanted to work on boosting their competences. At the same time, the same group had some participants who were there only physically and just wanted to get done with the workshops, have fun with the mates and leave. As sad as it might sound, it is perfectly logical as it is an image of a large size of our society. The bright side is that you can easily notice that all these youngsters have huge potential to turn out as future doers and I believe that such forums will enable them to move from having passive and unanimated profiles to being the change makers the country needs right now.
The YV is mainly about training teenage leaders to have a voice and advocate for causes and social issues. Together, in relation with the SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals), we discussed gender equality and tackled how bad we deal with trash and waste management in Tunisia. We finished that workshop with making an oath about committing to improving our personal habits, working more often on achieving the SDGs and trying to influence the society to do the same.
Add to what was said, a young leader should also master the dialogue tools and participate in a dialogue with the only aim of discussing to discover others and embracing their differences. This is the message that we as facilitators tried to deliver. We shared some dialogue tools with the young participants such as verifying that what is heard is what was meant and such as creating a safe space for all to freely share their thoughts and opinions.
They also had some other workshops about debating, advocating and planning an advocacy campaign. Furthermore, the participants got the chance to choose the social thematic they want to deliberate about during a forum and the chance to vote for the three-composed board leading that simulation. Being involved in an election and concretely practicing democratic values and citizenship was a constructive method and an inspiring exercise for them as future electors especially when they had priceless reactions during that voting process.
The tears and sadness seen on those passionate teenagers faces during the last session of the last day were captivating. They were emotional and spontaneously looking to hug the rest of the participants and the facilitating team leaders. Witnessing their passion, their eagerness for future gatherings, the sparkle and hope they were pumping into the air was so absorbing and I felt comforted and optimistic about my country's future.