UNESCO participates in the largest international student-led conference on empowering youth and youth leaders

On the 4th of November the UNESCO GCC and Yemen Office took part in the Qatar Leadership Conference which is the largest International student-led workshop-based conference, QLC is designed around the concept of developing student leadership, service and activism, and media studies.

The conference featured more than 44 unique workshops over two and a half days, bringing together internationally renowned thought leaders, local professionals, educators, as well as global-minded attendees who wished to develop their leadership skills.

As part of its mission, UNESCO works to provide quality education to all children and citizens and to assist countries in adopting international standards and promoting free exchange of ideas.

A UNESCO session was held during this conference, titled Empowering Yemeni Youth towards Peace. The main objective of this session was to provide the participants with the skills and knowledge they needed to create awareness content to assist their communities.

This session complimented many projects and activities that UNESCO participated in the past empowering youth and women, like the “Cash for Work: Promoting Livelihood Opportunities for Urban Youth in Yemen” funded by the European Union, and the “Empowering Yemeni Youth towards peace: ensuring access to information and participation” project that was funded by the United National Peacebuilding Fund (UNPBF).

The session was divided into a presentation, a discussion and engagement activities, these activities included an introduction about Yemen and the conflict over there, and how it affected the Yemeni youth and women SDGs relevance.

An interesting icebreaker quiz technique was used to conduct the session; different topics were discussed with the participants, The 2250 UN resolution was one of these topics, identifying its pillars for action: participation, protection, prevention, partnerships and disengagement and reintegration on the regional and international level, and how to consider setting up mechanisms that would enable young people to participate meaningfully in the peace processes.

After the panel discussion, UNESCO participated in a brainstorming exercise on ways forward on empowering young leaders and developing Youth Leadership in Yemen.