World Youth Skills Day
July 15, 2021 - When Mona Al-Hasan arrived in Turkey in 2013 at the age of 17, she decided to complete her secondary education in her new country, knowing she had to overcome the challenges of a new language and a different curriculum. Despite all the difficulties, she managed to graduate from high school and was accepted at Urfa University’s Faculty of Turkish Literature, where she met a group of young women who shared her dream and ambitions of building a better future for Syrian youth in displacement and exile. Mona and her friends signed up for a training they had read about on Baytna’s Facebook page, supporting the Syrian Students Committee, which received over 300 applications from Syrian students in Turkish universities.
For the training, Mona and her friends named their team “Women for Peace” – a team comprised of two women and a man residing in Urfa and Mardin. The training they received from Baytna focused on peace building, advocacy, citizenship, and drafting recommendations papers. After the 6-month training period, participants were able to form their own teams and to give trainings themselves; this led to work with political and civil society bodies in Urfa and Mardin, including the Raqqa Civil Council, the Political Bloc in Urfa, and the Kadak Center which provided the location and the logistical support for Women for Peace to give trainings to the youth teams in the two cities.
Women for Peace also worked with women’s civil society teams in Urfa, including Ward Baladi which helps displaced women without a breadwinner in their family, providing financial and logistical support. Women for Peace also gave them Baytna’s peace building training.
Ali Habbal, Baytna’s Outline Program Officer, explained that “the Women for Peace team was able to reach 100 young men and women in Urfa and Mardin, who joined the project activities for four months after their training. Few of the biggest outcomes of this project were raised awareness on the importance of trusting communities in development, the role of dialogue in the context of conflict resolution, and civic action’s place in helping marginalized and conflict-afflicted communities recover, and actively engage in development processes.”
The experience had a huge effect on Mona’s life, as she described it to us. "The trainings and workshops that I went through at all stages helped me discover my team spirit, the importance of teamwork, political and civil activism. It showed me how to support Syrian youth organize their work to raise standards, and to reach a just and comprehensive solution to our demands – first as youth, and second as Syrians. On a personal level, I think it helped me discover that I am a strong and empowered woman, capable of professional work, and capable of supporting myself and the women of my country, and young people in all fields (humanitarian, civic, political) with all my energy. I am determined to continue.”
Laughing, she ends the conversation saying: "I didn't know I was going to say all this now, but it seems like this really was a moving and radical experience in my life!”
