{"id":5401,"date":"2018-12-24T10:24:11","date_gmt":"2018-12-24T09:24:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rnw.media\/?post_type=news&p=5401"},"modified":"2018-12-24T10:24:11","modified_gmt":"2018-12-24T09:24:11","slug":"five-years-of-the-yemen-youth-panel","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.rnw.media\/index.php\/news\/five-years-of-the-yemen-youth-panel\/","title":{"rendered":"Five years of the Yemen Youth Panel"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Yemen Youth Panel (YYP)\u00a0is\u00a0celebrating 5 years of successfully engaging young Yemenis via its online platforms and offline events.\u00a0Now known locally as Manasati 30, YYP\u00a0offers a space where young people regardless of their social, political or economic backgrounds can come together to voice their opinions and share their stories.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

YYP carries out regular surveys of its community so they can\u00a0interact directly and express their views on socio-political issues. Young people can give their views anonymously and are able to speak out without fear of negative consequences. The project is a safe space for views to be aired in a cultural context where that is far from the norm. Since launching in 2013, YYP has carried out\u00a075 surveys,\u00a0with more than 60,000 responses\u00a0from young people.<\/p>\n

Offline events\u00a0are\u00a0an important addition to YYP\u2019s online activities. Taking the form of debates, these are opportunities\u00a0for young people to come into face-to-face discussions\u00a0with\u00a0decision\u00a0makers\u00a0and\u00a0for\u00a0the project to build trust with young stakeholders.\u00a0Yemen is a sharply divided country and the debates are\u00a0unique\u00a0in that they bring together a diverse range of views from both the North and the South.<\/p>\n

The participants are recruited in cooperation with local NGOs\u00a0and via\u00a0the media faculties at the Universities of Sana\u2019a\u00a0and Aden. They are offered a four-day training in critical thinking, public speaking and other debating skills. The best participants are then invited to take part in the debate before a live audience. The experience is an eye-opener for the young students – one young women said she had never though she would be able to speak in public,\u00a0but the training changed that:<\/p>\n

\u201cI always wanted to be a politician and a decision-maker, this debating training added to my skills to be a good speaker and be able to convince people to buy my ideas, I want to be a leader and change the situation in Yemen. I think that today\u2019s debaters will be tomorrow\u2019s leaders\u201d.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The events have been essential in building YYP\u2019s reputation in Yemen as an influential and trustworthy platform – and that\u2019s why the team have continued to\u00a0organise\u00a0them despite the difficulties and dangers they have encountered since civil war broke out in 2015. Undaunted by the restrictions on travelling, the security threats\u00a0and hostility from local authorities, YYP has\u00a0held 2 debates each year\u00a0in various cities in North and South Yemen.<\/p>\n

Looking ahead, RNW Media\u2019s manager for Yemen,\u00a0Ruba\u00a0Mimi says her dream for YYP is that the community continues to grow and attract more young women and\u00a0more\u00a0people from the\u00a0South\u00a0so it becomes an even truer reflection of the diversity of Yemeni society.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Yemen Youth Panel\u00a0is\u00a0celebrating 5 years of successfully engaging young people online and offline.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":5422,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5401","news","type-news","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rnw.media\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/5401","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rnw.media\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rnw.media\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rnw.media\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rnw.media\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5401"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rnw.media\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5422"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rnw.media\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5401"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rnw.media\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5401"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}