Picture taken in front of the Shurouq Youth House in Palestine 09.
SHUROUQ YOUTH HOUSE - For three years ago the youth from the Peace and Freedom Youth Forum (PFF) began to build Shurouq Youth House which should become a cultural center dedicated to the youth, and now this month June 2009 they can be proud of announcing its grand opening. The meaning of Shurouq is sunshine and it will provide the space and tools youth need to develop and implement their ideas, projects, and enhance their talents and skills, thus strengthening them in transpiring form individuals to contributors towards their society. Their wish is that the Youth House shall function as a platform for them to become stronger in their own struggle for becoming their own agents of change.
READ MORE HERE…
Photo: Sewing project - one of the projects taking place at the Youth Home, where girls are trained by professional tailors for two years before getting a certificate and a sewing machine to continue their work, independently.
At the end of our stay in Tamale and after we had been working with the Youth Home for 6 months, we came to the decision, together with the user groups of the Youth Home, that the best way forward was to establish a fund - The Youth Home Fund. We are happy for this decision as we can see great prospective in how this can benefit the Youth Home. We are convinced that The Youth Home Fund not only can strengthen the place, but also the relation and cooperation between the different user groups.
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Photo: Workshop at the Youth Home on youth and development in Northern Ghana. From the left: Firdaus, Kudus, Osman and Hamza.
By: Issah Osman, 22 years old
I am a youth of this country (Ghana) and said to be the backbone of my community and the country at large. Hence, I am classified as a youth because the youth is said to be a person or persons who has/have the maturity to understand and make good decisions that will help him/her in acquiring knowledge and skills for the development of his/her community.
In the traditional society that I live most of the youth are not educated properly, especially those in the villages, and this is a very big problem to my traditional society and Ghana as a whole. In my traditional community where traditional religion dominates we have a belief that the youth must be in the farm instead of schooling. And another issue that is hindering the development of youth is that we believe that the older generation should always lead the youth even if they lack experience.
Lack of education and opportunities for the youth in my community has led the youth to engage themselves in dangerous and various immoral acts that are not accepted by the society. Even some of the youth of my community who are educated to the tertiary level engage themselves in these immoral activities such as stealing, prostitution, alcoholism and even gamble so as to earn them a living, because they are denied jobs. Where ever they go the older generation claims that the youth are not experienced to work in the community. So, I therefore think that in order to help solve these uprising immoral acts in the country the government should provide more vacant places in the society so as to help the youth leaving school to be enrolled in a place of work. Another way of solving these are that there should be more youth associations that should be organised within the society so that the associations would be properly educating their country. A country with a stranded youth shall never develop! To finally draw a conclusion to how to solve these problems of the youth is when their needs are properly taken care of.
Photo: Youth Home Cultural Group practicing dance and drums at the Youth Home. Tamale, Jan. 2009.
We like to built and expand Youth Houses because many youngsters around the world lack opportunities to make a livelihood for themselves and need a room, where they can express themselves, share experiences, develop skills, get inspiration and connect with other youngsters, who are at the same stage of life. Youth Houses would exactly provide this space for the youth, as the youth themselves will participate and determine what kind of activities they find interesting and resourceful for their own development. This will not only benefit the youth themselves but also boost the development of their respective countries.
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Photo: Zaki during the Sababas workshop together with youngsters from the Youth Home, Tamale. Feb. 2009
The Sababas workshop at the Youth Home, Tamale, will kick off from the 31st of January to the 3rd February 2009. The theme of the event is peace building, youth and development and exchange of knowledge through arts and music. Twelve artists gathered from Denmark and Ghana, six from Denmark and six from Ghana, are meeting in Tamale to share their skills and knowledge with the youngsters from the Youth Home. An exchange between different cultures and skills will take place within four to six days, where the youth are going to be introduced to various types of music and visual arts, and vice versa. The youth will be involved with the planning and the context of the event. They will through lyrics, music and visuals, which they have developed together with the visiting artist, get the chance to express themselves. For instance, how they see development and the challenges the region is experiencing, and especially how the youth feels about being the next generation of change. The recordings and videos made during this workshop will contribute to the CD/DVD that the Sababas artist will produce together in their four weeks exchange in Tamale.
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Photo: Rafia, Agnes and Vera participating at the Youth Forum 2008. Dalun, Sep. 2008. A great thanks to Hummel for sponsoring t-shirts.
In the last weekend of August, HeartRebels took part of organizing the Youth Forum 2008 in Ghana. This was done in cooperation with the Ghana Friendship Groups and the Youth Action on Reproductive Order (YARO), a local NGO.
The Youth Forum took place in a little village in Northern Ghana called Dalun. Northern Ghana is generally characterized by a lack of investments and businesses compared to the South, and therefore it has severe poverty problems. Hence, the theme of this year’s Youth Forum, which was Youth & Employment, is extremely relevant. The youth attending appreciated that this matter was focused on, so that they had a chance to express their opinions and share their experiences. READ MORE HERE…
Photo: ‘African Footprint’ performing sunday at TrailerPark 08. - Amazing!
We are very very proud to announce that TrailerPark Festival 08 managed to make a profit of 70.000 kr to ‘Art To Action - Social Innovation Ghana’. We would like to thank all the artists, dj´s bands, volunteers and supporters who helped make this possible. We hope everyone wishes to support again next year!
Love from HeartRebels and ArtRebels Crew
The wonderful TRAILERPARK FESTIVAL posters are now available for sale for 200 dkr each at www.ArtRebels.com and This Issue, Blågårdsgade 14, Cph N! All proceeds still go to the ‘Art To Action - Social Innovation Ghana‘ project, so feel free to buy plenty ;o).
The ten posters are made by Theis Wendt, SHFT, Mai Sydendahl, GoAheadRobUs, Mathias Malling Mortensen, Maria Torp, Jacob Tolstrup, Hvass&Hannibal, Anika Lori and Andreas Emenius. Thank you very much for the contributions!
With a background within international relations, development, politics and economy have we, Mia Beyer and Maja Hedin, become very interested in youth, empowerment and development, which thus have become our theme of our final master thesis in African Studies, at the University of Copenhagen. We have both worked with youngsters, among others, in Africa and have since we left, been felt with this urge for coming back to continue work and research.As we have stated before Heartrebels’ aim is to break down barriers between cultures and people, and it focuses on local micro-processes in an attempt to build global platforms for communal growth through creative cooperation - and by going to Ghana we wish to extent our knowledge to qualify our work, as well as spread the word about social responsibility. Hence this is also one of the reasons for why we contacted the Ghana Friendship Groups.
READ MORE HERE…
If you still haven’t heard of the website called MyC4, this is your change to check out this amazing micro finance project developed by the two entrepreneurs Mads Kjaer & Tim Vang. Shortly, MyC4 sees a world without poverty, where everyone has the same access to knowledge, markets and capital. In line with the Millennium Development Goal of eradicating poverty and hunger by 2015, MyC4 aims to help end poverty in Africa through a micro loan system, where you, as an individual or company, can invest in small African entrepreneurial businesses. MyC4 believes that a sustainable prosperity for Africa will develop by raising capital for the many entrepreneurs and not by increasing development aid for the region. Sounds confusing? It’s not! And you will find out much more by visiting their site: www.myc4.com
