Mideast Youth: Providing platforms for public voice
Esta presentción ha sido seleccionada como finalista del desafío
Staples Youth Social Entrepreneur Competition .
To inspire and provide young people with the freedom and opportunity of expression, and promote a fierce but respectful dialogue among the highly diverse youth of all sects, socio-economic backgrounds, and political and religious beliefs in the Middle East.
Sobre ti
Ubicación
Project Street Address
Project City
Project Province/State
Project Postal/Zip Code
Project Country
tu idea
Field of Work
social justice/human rights
If Field of Work is “other” please define in 1-2 words below
Year project started (or projected start date) (yyyy)
2006
YouTube Upload
Project URL (or link to any media coverage)
What is the primary problem your venture is trying to address and how are you addressing it (or planning to address it)?
In a region where the freedom to explore freely and formulate informed opinions are greatly constrained and dissent is neither welcomed nor tolerated, the Internet has provided youth with an avenue to break through the barriers. Through utilizing the inherent powers of the Internet, MideastYouth.com built the region’s most diverse forum, where we challenge each other on a daily basis. Our reach extends beyond the written word, and we have created platforms that allow our members to share audio and visual messages. We believe that forging partnerships and aiding young, promising activists would hasten the sowing of the seeds of change, and to that effect we are committed to providing technological assistance to those in need. In our recognition of the Internet as a powerful platform to reshape our societies, MideastYouth.com offers free hosting services to organizations or individuals who share the network’s vision and values. Our mission is to help such organizations and individuals attain their fullest potential through encouraging involvement in media-related activities, and helping them join the ever-growing chorus calling for social change in the region.
Name Your Project
Mideast Youth: Providing platforms for public voice
Describe Your Idea
To inspire and provide young people with the freedom and opportunity of expression, and promote a fierce but respectful dialogue among the highly diverse youth of all sects, socio-economic backgrounds, and political and religious beliefs in the Middle East.
Innovación
Project Description
To inspire and provide young people with the freedom and opportunity of expression, and promote a fierce but respectful dialogue among the highly diverse youth of all sects, socio-economic backgrounds, and political and religious beliefs in the Middle East.
Unique and different
MideastYouth.com is an organically self-created social organism, which employs a creative, innovative approach to social change. We have over 180 activists and bloggers in our network who are engaged in a fierce but respectful dialogue with one another in advocating for freedom of expression and access to information. They represent over 22 countries, making us the most diverse platform for intellectual dialogue in the region. Sworn enemies, nurtured to hate and distrust "the other"; fervent adherents to religions or ideologies, taught to believe that theirs is the only true path; aggrieved victims of violence who lost sight of the humanity in others. MideastYouth.com has delivered an opportunity to have our long-held convictions contested. No other independent, youth-created network in the MENA region has successfully integrated and celebrated the diversity of heritage and opinions.
Project plan
Due to the huge diversity we have within our group, English was chosen as the language of communication as it is a unifying factor which eases communication. However, we were painfully aware that through making that decision we were faced with the exclusion of millions of voices; fluent English speakers do not constitute a majority of the Middle Eastern population. To truly live up to our mission of promoting constructive dialogue, it is crucial that we extend our reach and provide content in regional languages. A simple yet effective solution would be to offer translated versions of select, highlighted posts in Arabic and Farsi - the two most widely spoken languages in the region.
Partnerships
Our most successful partnership, if it can be considered as such, was the recognition we got from The Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School, where MideastYouth.com was considered one of 4 projects that has made a "significant contribution to the Internet and its impact on society over the past decade." Aside from that we received a $5,000 grant in 2007 from the Atlas Economic Research Foundation for leading the "Best New Intellectual Entrepreneurship Project." Despite these grants, we remain entirely independent, but network with and provide platforms for dozens of regional NGOs that require our help.
Impacto
Impact
In two short years, MideastYouth.com has become a recognized leader in creating opportunities for dialog among youth of diverse backgrounds from the Middle East and North Africa and those with strong ties to the region, receiving a lot of regional and international coverage, as well as attempts by regional governments to be shut down due to the huge amount of controversial material within the site and its many projects.
Effectiveness
Our project is digitally-based, and its reach extends beyond geographical boundries, thus estimating the number of people served by our project is difficult. We connect the diverse religious and ethnic groups in the Middle East and diaspora, allowing warring communities to see the humanity in each other and hear differing viewpoints.
How do you engage and impact the community?
Instead of scribbling in a journal for an audience of one, we encourage our bloggers and readers to participate in a bigger conversation by adding images and videos, uploading podcasts, and offering their opinions in posts, comments, and forums using multimedia platforms for other cultural and artistic expressions. Just as in other nations, youth may express their protests or frustration through music, painting, photography – whatever medium they may choose to expression themselves. This is the voice that we encourage all to use, and that may have no other outlet.
How do you measure this impact?
We measure our impact by the amount of media coverage we receive worldwide due to our raising of controversial issues, as well as our growing readership and participation, and most importantly, the influential leaders who have either exemplified our efforts or have tried to stop it by censoring our content. This shows that we are reaching and trying to influence the right people and thus contributing an actual difference.
Obstacles
Sadly, our personal safety and security is our biggest challenge and our biggest obstacle. Members contribute from countries that might turn around and arrest them without notice, in which the penalty for blogging may be incarceration, and if a legislative proposal is approved in Iran, execution. And yet, each of us risks these consequences out of our passion for what we are doing together to advocate for freedom of expression by doing it. We also have limited resources. The MENA nations have been slow to recognize human rights and free speech as being universal. While we have occasionally received interest from potential sponsors within the region, they inevitably back out when they realize the scope of our organization's activism on behalf of controversial and unpopular constituencies. They feel that it is too controversial to support an organization that campaigns for the rights of migrants, and women, against honour killings and human trafficking, and on behalf of the Baha'is and other oppressed minorities.
Esta presentación se trata de
Sustenibilidad
Fuente de financiamiento
(or how do you expect your initiative will be financed)
When the project was at its early age, we used to create and sell shirts that promote human rights or help create awareness on important issues that are untouched by the mainstream media, and use the money to pay off our hosts or create different projects. However we have progressed beyond that stage, and began using ChipIn.com in order to raise funds for unique projects by determined friends and colleagues in Afghanistan, Iran, Mauritania, Iraqi Kurdistan, et al. Now we create and maintain our financial growth from sponsorships that echoe our vision and by partnering with organizations who support our mission.
Aside from financial sustainability, how do you plan to grow and sustain your project?
Our project was specifically built to incorporate as many people as possible, allowing us to sustain our growth by succeeding to create a huge impact in society. Each day we are recruiting more and more volunteers and thinking of and creating more projects for them to help lead. Thousands of loyal readers and supporters help us by providing financial resources for us to consider, suggesting organizations to partner with, or by donating directly to make specific projects possible.
Finance details
Grants:
$5,000 from the Atlas Economic Research Foundation
$10,000 from the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School
Anything besides that were seperate donations from members (up to $3,000)
Creative funding
When applying for funding from the Knight Foundation, we created a small video podcast where we went around and asked random young people what their vision for the future is, what issues would they like to see addressed, what kind of resources they would need to help them achieve it, and what means they find to be most effective (technology, music, film, etc.) Unfortunately we never got a Knight grant, our base being outside of the United States severely limits us from requesting a decent amount of independent funding in this field.
Other non finance needs
Growing readership, the increased seriousness of projects, and our impending graduations mean that the time has come to make the transition to a professional organization with a combination of paid and volunteer support. We need professional IT services to help us maintain our role as one of the leaders in this field, as well as a team of professional full-time translators in order to help us make our work as visible and accessible as possible throughout this region and beyond.
La historia
Motivation
Moved as a young child by the disrespectful and inhumane treatment of immigrant workers that I witnessed, I kept in my heart a deep sense of outrage and injustice. There is no force more powerful, it is said, than that of righteous indignation! Increasingly frustrated in my early college years by the one-dimensional portrayal throughout media of Middle Eastern youth – a portrayal virtually unanswered because of censorship and state control of media in the region - I turned to my keyboard to answer with my own voice, to show not only the diversity of ethnicities, religions, and cultures in the region, but also the diversity of opinion, fervour, ideals, hopes, and politics; to portray for the first time in the global discourse Middle Eastern youth in all our depth, our feelings, and our complexity. I was joined over time by a growing number of similar voices, declaring in unison that we are Muslim and moderate, idealistic and hopeful, Jewish and Zionist and peaceful; we are Christians, Baha’i, Sunni and Shia; Persians and Arabs; Turks, Berbers and Kurds, and we are all here so that the world hears us in our own voices. We are humanity, with feelings and dreams that unite us with the rest of the world.
Awards
Berkman Award for Internet Innovation:
http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/node/4316
Winner of New Intellectual Entrepreneurship Project
http://www.atlasusa.org/V2/main/new.php?new_id=1451
Broader context
Part of our commitment is to employ the latest technology and design standards for emerging individuals and non-profits, free of charge, knowing the strict financial limits of most regional activists. In our experience we have witnessed this lack of crucial resources limiting the growth, professionalism and visibility of some of the best activities in the region and we wish to effectively change that.
Ongoing
Through our consistent growth, hard work and by networking with other individuals to make our mission a success. We do not plan to run this organization as a hobby. We are determined to professionalize the network entirely and support our non-profit activities through sponsorship and partnering with like-minded NGOs who are equally passionate about using technology for social change.
What is your age?
22
How did you hear about this competition?
I indirectly heard about this competition from a member of Ashoka.
 | 186 weeks agoMideast Youth: Providing platforms for public voice has been chosen as a finalist in Staples Youth Social Entrepreneur Competition . |
| 190 weeks agoEsra Al Shafei said: I should probably add the specifics of how the funds would be distributed, and how it would sustain the growth of our plan: The ... about this Competition Entry. - leer más > |
| 190 weeks agoEsra Al Shafei said: Dear Kate, thanks! The funding will be used to empower and expand the use and visibility of our project by making it entirely ... about this Competition Entry. - leer más > |
| 190 weeks agoKate Myers said: Hey Esra, Your video is excellent and is dedicated to an important social issue. Could you explain where you plan to target your ... about this Competition Entry. - leer más > |
| 192 weeks agoEsra Al Shafei said: A technical error with the system has made my age appear as 11 (I tried editing it several times without success.) Please note that I am ... about this Competition Entry. - leer más > |