A performance by youths in progress at the Empower 2015 Conference in Doha yesterday: PICTURE: T Thajudheen

A special task force to give the youth a more voice in building “peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development” was constituted yesterday at the conclusion of Empower 2015, an education and community development summit in Doha, held under the aegis of the Reach Out to Asia (Rota).
The task force which consisted of 20 leaders convened a special session to begin identifying a list of recommendations that supported the Post-2015 Development Agenda of the United Nations. It included those objectives related to youth, access to education and promoting peace.
The recommendations, said the organisers, will form the basis of a global advocacy campaign that will seek to create links with youth forums, conferences and meetings around the world including the World Humanitarian Youth Summit, which Doha will host in September.
At the conference that concluded yesterday 450 youths in the age group 16-27 participated. Besides from Qatar, they came from Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Oman, Kuwait, Bahrain, Turkey, Libya, Algeria, Egypt, Cambodia, Malaysia, Azerbaijan, UK, Netherlands, Greece, Ethiopia, Canada, USA, Kyrgyzstan, Bolivia and Sri Lanka among others.
The organisers also announced Rota Youth Service Club (RYSC) Awards.
The winners were announced by Rota board member Dr Sheikha Aisha bint Faleh bin Nasser al-Thani and Rota executive director Essa al-Mannai.
The organisers said the awards were a key element of Rota’s ongoing efforts to empower, equip and invest in the youth of Qatar by establishing a network of clubs to lead citizenship
initiatives in the local community.
In the Best Project, Best Team Work and Best Achievement categories, the winners were One Society One Family, Kadem and Count on Me, respectively:
Led by a group of university students, ‘One Society One Family’ focuses on bridging the gap between
different groups of people.
Kadem is a club that aims to boost leadership skills among youth by implementing a series of workshops to inspire and equip community leaders. The training they led covered topics such as Public Speaking, Positive Attitudes and Self Confidence.
‘Count on Me’ is a club based in Qatar’s Al Bayan Secondary Independent School, and aims to create awareness among students and local communities on the benefits of recycling and its economic and environmental value – a key pillar of sustainable development. The team of young girls had organised a fundraising campaign that started with engaging young students from the school in preparing recycled artwork, which was sold at a three day exhibition hosted at Katara Cultural Village. The revenue from the artwork were utilised to support the needs and requirements of the Syrian refugees.
A special RYSC award was also given to Rota youth advisory board member and local volunteer leader, Ibrahim Yasser.

‘Global events challenging notions of peaceful societies’

Reach Out to Asia (Rota) board member Sheikha Aisha bint Faleh bin Nasser al-Thani yesterday said that the ongoing developments around the world have challenged the public notions of peaceful societies.
“The latest developments across the world have prompted us to have a rethink of what we can do to improve human security, prosperity and happiness,” she said,adding that Empower is about walking the walk, providing the skills, knowledge and inspiration to tackle pressing issues like peace and encouraging youth to take a more active role in promoting peace.
Rota executive director Essa al-Mannai said, “Empower is built for youth, by youth and would not have been possible without the hard work by its youth planning committee.”
Over the weekend, Empower’s official Twitter hashtag, #EMPOWER2015, became the number one trending topic in Qatar with an online conversation generating well over 11,400 tweets.