The 3-Day Youth Environmental Challenge - Nablus

calendar_today 2023-03-16

location_on W Restaurant - Nablus

On Thursday, March 16th 2023, Shiam - Youth Make the Future launched the Youth Environmental Challenge in Nablus as part of "Engage Youth Centers in Designing Environmental Initiatives to Sustain their Local Community Interventions” project.

The 3-Day Bootcamp event engaged six youth centers from Nablus, Jenin, Qalqilya and Tulkarem to develop environmentally friendly initiatives that could potentially have a positive impact on their communities. The 3-day competition was among the six groups to transform their innovative ideas into environmental solutions that could help with environemntal problems facing the engaged youth in their local communities.

On March 18, 2023, the pitching day and the last day of the Environmental Youth Challenge in Nablus was held where the environmental initiatives that were designed over a period of three days were presented to a judging panel consisting of Ms. Ranan Muthaffar, Deputy Chief Of Party for Civic Participation and Community Engagement project, Mr. Mohammed Hamidi, Environmental Specialist, Mr. Mahmoud Abu Amira, the Programme Director of the Small and Medium Enterprise Support Project for Creating Job Opportunities for Youth and Women, Mr. George Kapataies, General Manager of Shiam organisation, and Mr. Bilal Alshaikh Ali, Director of Activities and Follow-up Department at Kadoorie University. Three teams were chosen to win the $2,000 Embrace Prize for a period of three months.

As a result, three winning teams were selected to proceed with the incubation period of three months.

1. First place: "Flowers Land" initiative, which aims to use treated wastewater from the purification plant for watering various types of roses. This has a positive economic and environmental impact on the owners of these roses by selling them and using them for decoration and events.

2. Second place: "Needle and Thread" initiative, which aims to collect accumulated fabrics in upholstery and sewing workshops and turn them into usable products that help reduce the damage resulting from these fabrics.

3. Third place: "Our Children with Clean Environmental Steps" initiative, which aims to recycle and reshape vehicle tires, containers, cans, and scrap metal at the Dar Al-Amal center in Ramallah and use them to grow roses and plants in a nursery.

The project is implemented in partnership with the Catholic Relief Services (CRS) and the International Family Health Organization (FHI360) and funded by United States Agency for International Development (USAID).