News and articles

04 June 2012 The project ‘Youth Innovative Participation in Civic Engagement’ has been successful in activating youth in civil society issues and in making impacts in their local communities. One of the project’s five groups has succeeded in fighting environmental issues in Al Russaifa, which has lead to the reopening of Al-Russaifa Park.

04 June 2012 For two intensive weeks 8 Danish nursing- and therapist students from Metropol University College visited the Middle East as part of their studies. Arranged by ActionAid Denmark’s project Global Contact the young students visited hospitals in the occupied Palestinian territories in order to learn about the health care system in an international context.

04 June 2012 In April ActionAid Denmark’s training unit conducted a training of 30 working children in Jordan. The training took place in cooperation with the ‘Social Support Centre’ that is providing education for adolescents in the labour marked. Two Global Platform trainers prepared a programme focusing on self-improvement, gender related issues, communication and critical thinking, and described the outcome as very successful.

03 April 2012 ActionAid Denmark participated in a celebration of the International Women’s Day on the 8th of March in Amman. At the one day gender conference they presented the idea of training gender ambassadors in civil society organizations in Jordan.

03 April 2012 More than 40 representatives from various CSOs, NGOs, youth groups and activists across the MENA region met in a 3-days conference in Beirut to discuss possibilities and challenges for the future role of civil society after the Arab Spring.

03 April 2012 Innovative and critical teaching methods, the active creation of job opportunities for youth, and the institutionalization of youth councils in the local government structure. This was some of the issues that the 18 West Bank Youth Local Councils raised at a national Youth Summit in Palestine.

22 March 2012 Youth in Zarqa is busy preparing for local campaigns about the public service sector. Through three intensive weeks, 125 young people are given a ‘toolbox’ of skills and resources to prepare them for greater engagement in their communities.

22 March 2012 A summer camp, in the Beqaa area, in Lebanon has led young participants to make a project on drug problems in their local communities. The youth has expressed their excitement over the project and has found it very helpful in daily life.

09 November 2011 Palestinian girls should be able to express themselves and the stories of their daily lives in the Occupied Palestinian Territories through new technology

03 November 2011 New inputs have come to Palestinian partner organisations. Ane, Camilla and Amy are ActionAid Denmark's new Inspirators in the West Bank.

18 October 2011 The two first weeks of October was a time of theater and performance for civic engagement in Amman. Development workers, youth activists, actors, clowns and other artists from the region were gathered to discuss and explore the possibilities of engaging youth through performing arts

10 October 2011 A lot of things are happening in these months, including the arrival of six new trainers, who will be working to train young people from all over the region.

03 October 2011 RAPOLITICS is a Danish association that works with urban musical expressions, appreciative communication and democratic awareness among young people in Denmark and the Middle East.

12 September 2011 Meet Shatha Daqaq. She has since July 1st been Youth Officer for ActionAid in the occupied Palestinian Territories. Born and raised in Palestine, she sees it as the goal for her country to develop a healthy civil society of its own.

11 September 2011 In July the Global Platform in Amman was filled to capacity. Syrian, Lebanese, Palestinian, Jordanian and, for the first time, also Egyptian youth gathered for a three week educational course, Training of Trainers (ToT). Two of the participants, Ibrahim & Nasma, take stock of their stay.

08 September 2011 Meet ActionAid Denmark's new Youth and Capacity Development Adviser in MENA, Anindita Dutta Roy.

24 July 2011 For ten days, 16 members of youth organizations and young people from the MENA region have participated in an intensive course about teaching life skills and enhancing youth participation through sports.

19 July 2011 26-year old Abdurahman from Jordan attended the Global Change Course in Copenhagen. Read his account here

23 June 2011 A new narrative report outlines the activities and results of ActionAid Denmark's regional youth programme in the Middle East and North Africa in 2009-2010. The report includes many interviews with young Arabs and Danes participating in the programme.

05 May 2011 Interview with the new Gaza Inspirator Lorena Torres

05 May 2011 A group of Palestinian clowns have left the camps of Lebanon to tour Jordan for two weeks, where they are hosted and supported by ActionAid Jordan.

21 April 2011 “I’ve been so busy meeting potential partners and artists here in the Levant, that my blog is still in Lebanon” Kim Karina Kristensen, co-chair at the Danish non-profit association Rapolitics, tells us as we meet her in Amman.

19 April 2011 “Why should we fight wasta when we would all benefit from it anyway if we got the chance?”, said a critical participant when the campaign topic was introduced at the leadership training in Amman.

18 April 2011 Two days of intensive workshopping in Appreciative Inquiry (AI) method at ActionAid regional office.

10 April 2011 Interview with Nicola Bay, Middle East Director of ActionAid Australia

13 March 2011 The Music for Change project in Jordan has finished its pilot period and is now ready for the next phase.

07 March 2011 Today, people all over the world celebrate the anniversary of the International Women\s Day, marking the continueing fight for women's rights. At ActionAid Denmark in MENA, we mark the day by telling women's stories.

22 February 2011 Activista has now come to the Middle East. The first Activista event was launched in Amman, Jordan, with great enthusiasm and large attendance.

16 February 2011 Interview with Nadeen Fares, programme manager of Reaching Beyond the Wall, a new project in Gaza

16 February 2011 Global Contact is launching a new initiative with professional volunteers, as four Danish nurse interns have just arrived in Hebron

10 February 2011 Life is tough in a Palestinian refugee camp - the Global Volunteers living and working in Al Alrroub refugee camp outside Hebron have experienced this first-hand. But it is also a site for positive changes and fruitful culutral exchange.

06 February 2011 The room was pulsating with music, voices, and good vibrations as the first phase of the Music for Change project culminated at the Platform in Amman.

25 January 2011 Meet Lucas in Gaza, Suma in Nairobi, Kenya and Adam in the Kibera slums. Explore how they work - all examples of ActionAid Denmark's new personnel program in developing countries.

20 December 2010 A group of Danish volunteers together with young Palestinians have started out debate meetings in Hebron, Palestine. Youth from Palestine and Denmark have attended the meetings.

08 December 2010 It is important that ActionAid is in the Middle East and is taking part in strenghtening the movement for social change that is in the region, Trine Pertou Mach, chairwoman of ActionAid Denmark, believes.

31 October 2010 31 participants, five from Syria and 26 from Jordan were participating in a Global Platform training over four days on how to facilitate participatory processes.
”One of the topics that came up during the training was about finding solutions on how to engage young people in their local communities around the Middle East,” Hanaa Jumaa, one of the eight voluntary trainers facilitating the four days workshop, said.

02 October 2010 A group of young Jordanians are forming a local Activista network of young people aiming at fighting hunger.

02 September 2010 The president of the local community Committee in Jebal al-Hussein in Amman would like to create a project similar to the Zarqa project ’Youth Voices through Alternative Media’ in her area.
- I would like the kids in Jebal al-Hussein to do film and radio here too, the committee Chairperson, Afaf Safadi says.

25 August 2010 Aboard the Middle East Expedition cross-cultural bridges were built, cross-cultural friendships arose and both Arabs and Danes learned that their opinions matter and that ideas can turn into real projects.

15 August 2010 A girl is sitting on the floor with her hands covering her face, while another girl is walking around reciting a poem, she has written to her fiancée working far away in Iraq as a doctor.
”You and me and the silence, just the silence. The prettiest language is the language of the eyes, but it is also the most difficult when it comes to love. We see each other but we never see anything. I just need to hear one word, just one word. Tell me you love me, it is all I need.”

01 August 2010 People laughed, cried and cheered when the play ”Ehna Meen” (”Who am I?”), was shown in the Royal Cultural Centre in Amman.
A group of young people born in Zarqa and still living there were telling their own personal stories on stage through storytelling, theatre, dance performance and break dance.

15 July 2010

27 June 2010 On the 26th of May the official launch of MS ActionAid Denmark’s program in Zarqa took place. The aim of the day was to create awareness of the work of MS and its strategic partners in Jordan.

16 June 2010 This spring the Regional Office of MS ActionAid Denmark (MS) in Amman turns into a Global Platform for the MENA region. This expansion will lead to many new activities and opportunities for cultural exchange and training of young people from all over the world.

25 May 2010 The first weekend in April 2 young Palestinians and 2 young Syrians travelled to Copenhagen to participate in the 6 day long International Leader Training Seminar organized by MS. Here is a postcard from the four young Arabs.

05 April 2010 My stay in the Burj Ash-Shamali Camp in Tyre, Lebanon, involved everything from warm new friendships, frustration about the miserable conditions within the camps and magnificent cultural and religious experiences.

24 March 2010 Can a girl make it as a rapper? Can a man be accepted as a belly dancer? Around 25 young men and women gathered Thursday evening to break down stereotypes about the two sexes.

10 March 2010 Since the start of February six young Danes have been placed in the MENA region in three different organizations which all aims at empowering youth.

08 March 2010

25 February 2010 The 4th of February 30 young people ended the third round of shows with a great performance in the largest center of culture in Zarqa. The 30 participants have participated in setting up the show, writing the lyrics and the texts.