Two hundred young Palestinians have taken part in Media and Information Literacy (MIL) summer camps organised during August in the West Bank and Gaza by the EU-funded NET-MED Youth project in partnership with the Palestinian Youth Association for Leadership and Rights Activation, a member organisation of NET-MED Youth.

The camps aimed to empower 18-to-25-year-old Palestinian women and men, members of youth organisations and media graduates, “to understand the functions of media and other information providers, to critically evaluate their content, and to make informed decisions as users and producers of information and media content”. The summer camps offered several capacity-building sessions on media and information literacy skills and digital media.

“Today, we get a series of news items, and the information about these is often different from one agency to another. We get confused and feel misled,” says Maryam Naji, 23 years old from the Gaza Strip. “This training camp taught me how to verify information because both media and information play an essential role in our daily lives.”

The training sessions were diverse and also covered smart phone press, including got hands-on experience practicing the art and craft of media and journalism.

“This is the first time I use my mobile phone to do media reporting and produce videos. I feel I just broke the barrier I had before with the camera,” said Shadi Safi, 19, from Ramallah. “I think this will positively guide my future career.”

Through MIL trainings, NET-MED Youth aims at ensuring that every woman and man, particularly youth, can exercise their rights to freedom of opinion, expression and access to information – to be actors in, and beneficiaries of, sustainable development. Thus, the gap between the information rich and the information poor in society can be decreased, setting the basis for a more sustainable future.

NET-MED Youth aims to improve the access and effective participation of young people in mainstreaming their priorities into legislation and national planning in the Southern Mediterranean Partner countries. Specifically, it aims to build the capacities of youth organisations in the region and to enhance networking among them in order to reduce the fragmentation of efforts and harness the collective potential of young people in achieving democratic transition towards active citizenship, political participation and social inclusion.

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Press release

Media and Information Literacy

Palestinian Youth Association for Leadership and Rights Activation

NET-MED Youth website