Service-Learning Arrives in Doha, Qatar
As a movement, service-learning now includes the Middle Eastern country of Qatar, situated on the Persian Gulf off the eastern coast of Saudi Arabia. In May, NYLC staff members Jim Kielsmeier, Sarah Ullmer, and Mason Fong offered youth and adult trainings during Qatar’s first youth engagement conference, sponsored by the nonprofit Reach Out to Asia and the Qatar Foundation
The ROTA conference, much like the National Service-Learning Conference ROTA staff attended in March, focused on developing youth leaders through service and advocacy. As Hisham Jabi of EDC, who also founded Ruwwad Youth Volunteers for Community Assistance in Palestine, said: “We must listen to our youth because if we do not listen to them, someone will. We have seen who these people are; they are extremists and engage youth in negative activities.”
Under the leadership of Her Royal Highness Shekha Mozah Bint Nasser, the ROTA youth service clubs based in schools and universities are helping youth cultivate skills to provide leadership in the social, economic, and environmental development of their country.
This is no small task given the rapid growth and resource disparities in Qatar, coupled with its large working immigrant population. As Jim Kielsmeier, NYLC founder and CEO, said during his keynote address: “Unlike previous generations, today — once a young person reaches puberty — a period of social disengagement begins that may continue into his or her twenties. If youth are fortunate, schooling is a primary source of meaning and purpose. But for an increasing number of young people worldwide, even a schooling experience does not provide sufficient engagement.”
The ROTA conference began to reverse this trend by engaging conference participants in projects ranging from learning Braille at an institute for the visually impaired, to home renovation, to developing a safe driving campaign — an issue for the wealthy country that has a short history of driving. An American team of young people and adults from Harry D. Jacobs High School in Illinois helped conference attendees learn how such programs can help change driving culture. The Illinois team participates in Project Ignition, a U.S.-based youth-led teen driver safety initiative sponsored by NYLC and State Farm®.
Participants in the workshop got out onto the Doha streets with messages on placards reading “Kids + No Seatbelts = Death” and “Thank U 4 Wearing UR [sic] Seatbelt.” The students observed driving practices and developed ideas to help spread safe driving messages such as creating an animated video and advocating for stricter seat belt violation penalties.
In addition to supporting workshops and off-site service projects, Ullmer and Fong hosted a daylong training for ROTA staff. Designed to be interactive and discussion-provoking, the simulation games and dialogue focused on leadership, class, and diversity — approaches used in NYLC’s National Youth Leadership Training each summer.
Ullmer, who directs NYLT and is NYLC’s Youth Initiatives Manager, was particularly inspired by her conversations with Arab young people about “their determination to create positive images of the Arab world.”
“This is something that has to come from them,” she added. “We can only offer models.”
Photo courtesy of Harry D. Jacobs High School.
