4. In which ways is the initiative creative and innovative?
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- From youths to youths … involving the main element of the problem and using it so that it becomes the main part of the solution. Is the main element in the method practiced to keep the Project going, to ensure keeping pace with what attracts youths, as youths contribute in the execution of the Project as organizing volunteers and participate in evaluating the experience and proposing recommendations. Because these youths make the main element of the initial brain storming sessions that precede activities of the project every year.
- Relating the outcomes of the Project to the labor market’s needs and requirements. The main objective of the project was never fulfilling youth’s time with activities during the summer, but to have an outcome that will directly pour into diversification of youths’ specialization and enriching the labor market as well as changing the pattern of their thinking from waiting for the employment to endeavoring to achieve independent income.
- Youth City 2030 provides a unique opportunity for youths to discover their talents and their interest to opt to a certain field. The City presents more than 80 training programs specialized in four main fields and give the participants the opportunity to be involved in more than one program with maximum three training opportunities under one roof.
- The City provides free areas for young entrepreneurs so that they can exhibit and sell their products or services. One week shall be allocated for each project with a total number of twenty projects through the period of the City (5 weeks) besides the annual Youth Bazar held in the City, which generate public youth interest and provides an opportunity for fifteen to twenty young Bahraini entrepreneurs.
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5. Who implemented the initiative and what is the size of the population affected by this initiative?
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Youth City 2030 Project is an initiative created and executed by the Ministry of Youth and Sports Affairs. The Ministry, over the seven years of the initiative, continued to develop and improve the Project in cooperation with the stakeholders. The Project provides its training and voluntary opportunities targeting youths in the age categories from (9-29yrs) which represents 39.9% of the population of the Kingdom of Bahrain that is almost 512,900 people out of the whole population. During the life of the Project the Youth City 2030 received more than 11,000 young and youth trainees, 4,752 of whom were males whereas 6,333 were females. In addition, 1055 were youth volunteers and more than 500 were trainers of both gender as well as the administration members, stakeholders, young entrepreneurs, a large number of suppliers and NGOs.
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6. How was the strategy implemented and what resources were mobilized?
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Financial Resources: the enhancement of partnership between the Ministry and the other governmental institutions had a big role in providing financial support and a number of services that contributed to a large extent in the execution of the Project. As mentioned above the main financing of this Project came from our strategic partner the Labor Fund “Tamkeen” being a facilitation of the joint objectives between the two institutions. Tamkeen funded the Youth City 2030 Project for several years as they believed in the importance of this initiative for the Bahraini youths with the aim of enabling them to reach labor market on the first hand and on the other hand due to the extent to which the objectives of this Project are related to the facilitation of the kingdom’s economic strategy 2030.other various financial support came from a number of institutions to provide a number of services of which are the EDB, Supreme Council of Women, Ministry of Interior, Bahrain Television, E-government Authority, a number of Bahraini newspaper and others.
Human Resources: The administrative and organizational part is the main role played by the Ministry of Youths and Sports in executions of its part of the Project depending largely on human resources.
1. Supervision: This role is assumed by a number of employees in the General Directorate for Youth Development in the Ministry of Youths and Sports whose main mission in this Project is to supervise the four training centers and who determine the content of workshops and training courses which will be conducted in each center. They also shall select the appropriate trainers based on certain criteria set by the Supreme Committee of the Project as well as following up students during the execution of the Project and coordinating all services, programs and needs related to the center.
2. Organization: Youth City 2030 depends mostly on Bahraini youth volunteers who are already graduates from the former programs of the Ministry of Youth and Sports. Their role has been facilitated and they have been assigned responsibilities in the service committee such as the Registration Committee, the Committee of Side Programs, the Design Committee, Printing, the Quality Committee and other committees supporting the Project, with the aim of developing them and refining their leadership skills so that they become leaders in such projects and qualified to enter the labor market with practical applicable competences. Therefor, this Project becomes a practical training for them to face problems and how to solve them. It also subjects them to many situations and circumstances to make them more mature and knowledgeable.
3. Training: the training activities in the Youth City 2030 depends largely on Bahraini resources that the best specialized trainers in the various fields are selected as the trainer assumes the responsibility of preparing the skills to be acquired, the method of training as well as preparing the subjects that he will present through the Project Period in co-ordination and direct supervision of the supervisor of the center. Many trainers from outside the Kingdom such as Gulf, the Arab World and foreign countries were asked to train the youths so that they acquire new skills for which specialized trainers in the Country are hard to find that allows trainees to specialized in such fields and be able to carry out training in the future.
4. Creativity: the City depends in its continuous success on the element of creativity, which shown in the constant diversification and innovative training programs launched every year, as the conducted programs in their execution phase take into consideration and endeavor to involve youths in the brain storming sessions at the begging of the year.
Technical Resources: the most modern equipment were brought in to provide the latest technology to participants such as graphic design devices, electronic drawings, cameras, printing devices and others.
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7. Who were the stakeholders involved in the design of the initiative and in its implementation?
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Strategic Partner: the Ministry of Youth and Sports concluded a partnership contract with Labor Fund “Tamkeen” to finance the Project and become the strategic partner due to the intersection of their objectives.
Contributing Bodies: many government bodies contributed in this initiative targeting the wide base of youth participating in this Project from all areas in the Kingdom of Bahrain. For example Enjaz Al-Bahrain Institutions provided workshops; the Supreme Council of Women executed a number of cultural competitions, Shura and Parliament Councils provided youths with awareness programs about civil participation and elections and Economical Development Board and many others.. In addition, Community Police provided security to the Project. The Ministry of Heath provided health services and enlightenment.
Media Coverage: many media bodies participated in covering this initiative such as the Ministry of Information, local newspapers and magazines and other media institutions.
Youths: youths are a main partner. Their participation begins from the first phases of the Project by brain storming, execution, contribution and evaluation.
Parents: parents contribute by providing their comments about the Project either through personal interviews or by forwarding their comments to the information desk in the City.
Young entrepreneurs: each year a number of youths, who are tiny business owners participate in the annual Bazar week, which is an excellent method of supporting and encouraging new ideas of the youths.
Handcrafts (Folk crafts) Owners: every year, the City allocates one week for the handcrafts (folk crafts) with the aim of enhancing the identity of and preserving the popular tradition to acquaint the youth with their cultural history and popular traditions.
Trainers: the trainers are selected according to their specialized qualifications and their experience and specializations in their fields. The mechanism of selecting the trainers influences the success of the Project.
NGOs: the Project concluded partnerships with a number of NGOs such as the Youth and Technology society and Izac in the training fields in addition to co-operation in the cultural fields
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8. What were the most successful outputs and why was the initiative effective?
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1. The youth 2030 Project endeavors to enable youths to be vocationally independent so that they don’t limit them self to finding job opportunities in the public or private sectors as they are trained and prepared to create their own income sources through the skills they own or acquire by training in the Project’s four training centers. This was achieved by Youth City 2030 with a number of success stories such as the stories of the photographer Misheal Yousif, the owner of JAN CLICK Company Jan Al-Bloshi, the business pioneer Mr. Abdulrahman Bu Hijji the owner of diary shop “Glace Roll” and another group of youths owners of distinctive projects. What the Project provide conforms with objective (8) of the SDGs that postulates the enhancement of continuous and comprehensive economic growth as well as complete productive laborship and providing descent jobs for all.
2. Objective (5) of the sustainable development objectives postulates “achieving equity between both sexes and enabling all women and girls”, the Youth City 2030 Project provides opportunities to all youths to participate in the training programs held in the City. They can even join the side programs and awareness sessions which are conducted in the break times without discrimination in conformation with the principle of equal opportunities to all in which the Government of Bahrain emphasize in the provision of all its services rendered to its people. Ever since it was established in 2010, the Youth City 2030 Project has been providing all its programs to youths of both gender without discrimination between males and females. Registration in available electronically at anytime round the clock so that registration is available to all without having to be personally present for registration.
3. From objective (17) “enhancing the execution methods and activating international partnership for sustainable development”, the Project signs a number of partnerships and cooperation contracts every year with the various bodies that are concerned with youth and who are interested in the objectives of sustainable development. At the tops of these partnerships comes the celebration of the International Youth day which is held in the Youth City 2030 in co-ordination with the UNDP. Another partnership is the co-operation with the Supreme Council of Women to enable the women and enhance her involvement in the community through awareness programs by which women are inducted and advised about the available services as well as giving lectures and conducting awareness competitions. One of the important partnerships also is with the Electricity and Water Authority which is the body responsible about the regulation of the public consumption of electricity and water. It’s important to mention Labor Fund (Tamkeen) as the main strategic partner who endeavored through our partnership to prepare the youths to enter the labor market and enable them economically.
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9. What were the main obstacles encountered and how were they overcome?
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1. Venue Problem: the unavailability of a suitable venue puts the organizing committee in a difficult position and a challenge to find an appropriate place.
- How to overcome the problem: renting one of the biggest conference halls in the Kingdom right after the end of the activity.
2. The problem of promoting the program and attracting the targeted audience: in the first years of the project there was a difficulty in reaching to the parents of the youth to induct them about the project and generate their trust and acceptance to register their children.
- How to overcome the problem: the Ministry launched a big publicizing campaign to promote the program through TV and media advertisements as well as roads ads.
- Sitting up advertising platforms in the commercial malls mostly visited by youths.
- Preparing and publishing a booklet that comprises all of the programs of the Project.
- Producing an informative film pictured in the first year of the program with the aim of showing it during the promotion visits to schools.
- Producing daily TV sessions to be shown on Bahrain TV.
- Publishing weekly brochure of youth nature that contain the activities of the Youth City.
3. Organization: the Youth City 2030, being one of the biggest projects provided to the youths in the Kingdom of Bahrain needs a large number of organizers during the lengthy work period from early morning to the late evening on a daily bases through the summer vacation. Therefore, the organizing committee reverted to the youths who are interested in volunteering to carry out this mission.
4. Capital (financing): to commences, the Project required a huge capital to purchase and obtain high technology equipment. Therefore, outside financing was sought through the enhancement of partnerships and promoting the Project to the interested institutions with joint objectives.
5. Providing teachers to execute the specialized program: the organizing committee faced difficulties in finding trainers especially for some specialized programs in media. The solution was to recruiting trainers from abroad and despite the high cost of recruiting such trainers however the various experiences and cultures had a positive effect in the outcomes of students’ works at the end of the Project.
6. Dealing with the youths problems: recruiting social specialist to deal with situations efficiently and professionally.
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