Photo: Ayad Amer (YES 2007 - 2008, Yemen) leads a portion of the school outreach sessions.

Following the successful first stage of the training on countering violent extremism, YES alumni in two newly-formed initiatives conducted a series of awareness sessions at a number of local schools in Aden. 

The two initiatives, Core of Peace and Seeds of Peace, spent weeks preparing for the awareness sessions. Although both initiatives had common targets, each group had a separate implementation plan. The tasks included training at the Alf Ba Foundation, preparing supplies including flipcharts and multimedia projectors, creating PowerPoint presentations, and coordinating with school principals.

Following the preparations, each initiative conducted outreaches in target schools. The Core of Peace initiative led awareness sessions in two schools, Al Ma’ali and Al Baihani, during a two-day period in three two-hour sessions for students aged 13 to18. The sessions included role-plays, videos, and discussions.

The Seeds of Peace initiative followed a similar format and carried out sessions at the International Comprehensive School for boys and the International Comprehensive School for girls.  

Photo: Shahenaz Bamosa (YES 2012 - 2013, Yemen, hosted by AYA in Wescosville, PA) and Mona Saif (YES 2013 - 2014, Yemen, hosted by Ayusa in Peoria, AZ) conduct a CVE awareness session.

In total, 470 students in four schools were impacted by this CVE trainings. “Engaging in such a useful workshop is considered as important as the need for education in our life. I personally benefited a lot from this orientation because I now can cope with such current issues that are common in our families, schools, society and even country.” said trainee Mohammed Al-Sheabi. 

To conclude, YES alumni from both initiatives conducted a two-hour outreach session at AMIDEAST for neary 500 English language students. “It was a very interesting session. It is important for people to coexist regardless of their background. We need to have these values in our community in order to rise above all challenges together.” said Yousif Ali, AMIDEAST intern and session attendee.

YES alumni in Yemen continue to make big progress in training the youth in their communities for a better future!