GNRC Third Forum – Arab States Report
GNRC Arab States Regional Session Report
Third Forum of the Global Network of Religions for Children
LEARNING TO SHARE
Values, Action, Hope
Number of persons participating: 16 adults, 4 children
From the following countries: Jordan, Palestine, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt and Sudan
Brief introduction:
The GNRC Arab States was founded after the GNRC First Forum held in Tokyo, 2000 as Middle East Region, with Mr. Fadi Yarak of the René Moawad Foundation (Lebanon) as coordinator for three countries (Lebanon, Jordan and Palestine). Since the GNRC Second Forum (Geneva 2004) the responsibility of the regional Coordination has been carried out by Rev. Dr. Qais Sadiq, President of the Ecumenical Studies Center, Jordan, where the GNRC Regional Secretariat is placed with the Regional Coordinator Assistant office.
Today, the GNRC Arab States Region includes all the 23 Arab States members of the Arab League. Due to the limited Regional Budget, the activities covered effectively only seven countries (Jordan, Palestine, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Egypt and Sudan) where the GNRC Youth Net exists with their own periodical meetings where they discuss their challenges and aspirations.
The first regional target was to introduce the GNRC in the Arab States at governmental, public and organization levels.
The GNRC Arab States delegates consider the Third Forum themes as challenges which our children today are facing. Holding the Forum in Hiroshima, the symbolic city of peace, gave the Forum a significant meaning with a great message for the global humanity: No more Nuclear Weapons.
Priority Actions for 2008-2012
- To launch a capacity building program by empowering national and regional trainers to train on the “Learning To Live Together” toolkit.
- To organize national and regional workshops for teachers, administrators, parents/ teachers associations to introduce and train on the “Learning To Live Together” toolkit
- To prepare periodic reports concerning the situations of children in each Arab state, having in mind the international indicators and the national reports issued by some NGOs.
- To spread awareness of social and safety regulations related to homeless children and child labor.
- To train media personnel on international and national charters and laws are concerning the Rights of the Child and the social problems facing children and families. This will enable the media people to deal with such problems in a specialized method.
- To ask all forms of media to inform about GNRC activities and recommend them to prepare programs about the problems facing the Arab child and how to deal with them in a way that would guarantee child rights and stability of families.
- To give the regional and national GNRC the liberty to choose the method of addressing Governmental and Non-Governmental Organizations concerning the goal and objectives of the CRC and how to implement them in their policies and strategies.
- To prepare constitutional and legal studies concerning the different child legislations within national legal systems, as a first step for establishing a unified codification for childhood in the Arab States.
- To enhance the spiritual and religious awareness of moral values in dealing with the environment in a human balanced way through the social, cultural, educational and political socialization prevailing in all the Arab States.
- To prepare a data base concerning the problems and laws of childhood, and the pioneering experiences at a national and regional level.
- To expand the GNRC activities in the other Arab States.
- To introduce the GNRC as regional consultant organization for child issues beside the Arab States League.
- To organize the GNRC Arab States Region by dividing it into three sub-regions:
- Sub-Region I (Jordan, Palestine, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Egypt and Sudan)
- Sub-Region II (Kuwait, UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman, Yemen and Saudi Arabia)
- Sub-Region III (Tunisia, Libya, Algeria, Morocco and Mauritania).
