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Getting down to brass tacks in Sofia, Bulgaria on 5-6 November, Rami Massad, a training expert from the Palestinian Youth Union and Tashka Gabrovska of JOBS, a front runner in supporting young people’s access to the labour market in Bulgaria, hammered out details to ensure that Palestinian training experts could benefit from the know-how of their counterparts in the new EU state.
The meeting was part of a series of best practice exchange being promoted by the EU’s MEDA ETE Programme which aims to promote employability amongst young people in the Southern Mediterranean region and Middle East. More specifically, the Palestinian and Bulgarian teams had come together to flesh out details on how trainers from the Palestinian Youth Union could benefit from the entrepreneurship training experience from their EU counterpart. The meeting on 5-6 November followed earlier discussions between the partners in Rome in April 2007, when the two agencies first made contact.
‘We have so much in common’ said Rami Massad of the Palestinian Youth Union, ‘very similar socio-economic contexts with high levels of unemployment amongst young people. We are keen to fine tune services to young women from rural areas, building on existing income-generating projects and this is where the Bulgarians have good experience’, he continued.
‘We agreed to borrow on a range of enterprise training packages we deliver here in Bulgaria’ said Tashka Gabrovska, JOBS Project Director, a UNDP-supported initiative, ‘while ensuring that these are adapted to meet young women in agricultural communities’. We hope to engage our UNDP colleagues in Palestine directly into the project, she added.
Next steps include the development of training materials, with Bulgarian experts sharing their know-how with fellow trainers in Ramallah in mid-April 2008. This will be followed by delivery of training to the target groups in May and June.
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Tony Gribben, Aziz Jaouani
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