Yemeni
Youth Conference 2002
by Yasmin Makmahi and Abtisan Mohamed
Being a Sheffielder and being a Yemeni –
two worlds or one?
When
three young Yemeni youths from Sheffield decided to research
the needs of Yemeni youths no one was quite prepared for the
outcome.
Gamdan Assinani, Fouad Saleh and Shamsan Shaif,
three confident and prominent young figures amongst the youth
could no longer ignore problems faced by themselves and others
like so many before them. This drove them to investigate the
problems amongst the youth in society and to compile a piece
of research that would then prove instrumental in the shake
up of the Sheffield youth system.
The research once completed with the backing
of the Children’s Fund received overwhelming acclaim
and publicity. They recognised a gap in the provision available
amongst the Youth in the Yemeni community. A gap that they
vowed close in order to ensure that the Yemeni Youth are given
every opportunity to overturn high rates of unemployment under
achievement at schools and generally under achievement across
the board.
Out of this was born desire within Gamdan
Assinani, Shamsan Shaif and Fouad Saleh and came the collaboration
with members of the Yemeni Community Centre, Yasmin Makmahi,
Abtisan Mohamed and Amin Kassim, to create a Yemeni Youth
Conference. With months of dedication and hard work the conference
took place on the 29th May 2002 and was led by Gamdan.
The conference was attended by local agencies,
voluntary sector organisations, teachers from various schools
and Yemeni Youth themselves. However it was disappointing
to note that schools with predominantly Yemeni pupils didn’t
feel it was important enough for them to attend.
The four workshops consisted of: Raising Achievement;
Culture and Language; Lack of Resources and Refugees and Asylum
seekers. These workshops derived from the main purpose of
the conference which was to give young people in the Yemeni
community a forum in which they can express their needs and
aspirations and to bring agencies and young people together
in recognition of those needs, and identify a way forward.
Although
the conference achieved its main purpose it is by no means
a conclusion to the problems amongst the Yemeni youth but
an opening to change the many disadvantages the Yemeni youth
face.
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