Youth in the Arab States: Changing the World for the Better

Dear colleagues and friends,

This exhibition, 'Youth in the Arab States: Changing the World for the Better', is part of a comprehensive multimedia advocacy and educational project to highlight the efforts of the Y-PEER global youth network to achieve the Millennium Development Goals. The pictures and stories illustrate the impact of the work of Y-PEER members on young people in seven target countries: Egypt, Lebanon, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia and Yemen.

The magnitude and complexity of challenges facing youth in the Arab States can seem daunting. Yet a closer look at these seven outstanding young people from different communities and backgrounds offers inspiring testimony to the power of community work, youth engagement and youth development.

You will meet Farah Yusuf Cawal, a business administration student and volunteer nurse in Somaliland. In 2007 she attended a workshop led by Y-PEER to educate young people about issues related to sexual and reproductive health and rights.

At that workshop, Farah began to recognize that domestic violence is a problem in her own community. Today Farah is working to empower young people with accurate information and leadership skills.

You will also meet Bilel Mezghouni, who works in poor neighborhoods around the Tunisian capital of Tunis to educate young people about HIV/AIDS; and Ramy Yasseen, a Y-PEER trainer from Sudan who has traveled through displaced persons camps in Darfur to raise awareness about the health risks of early marriage and gender-based violence and vulnerability of young women to HIV/AIDS

As we look towards the future, the stories told here show the enormous potential of the young people to initiate and lead the change that will contribute to achievement of the Millennium Development Goals.

I sincerely hope visitors to the exhibition, and readers of the accompanying book, will appreciate, as I did, the personal and professional challenges and accomplishments of these young people.

Along with thousands of other peer educators and trainers in the Y-PEER network, the young people featured here represent the power of youth mobilization to change society in positive ways.

Thank you.