The Middle East Youth Conference, which will be held under the slogan “Youth and the building of a free future”, will take place in Lebanon’s capital Beirut on 8 and 9 June 2024. At least 25 organisations from 14 countries in the MENA region will participate in the conference to unite the ongoing youth struggles in the region.
Amongst the groups joining the conference are the Syriac Youth from Iraq, the Yemeni Socialist Party, the Youth of the Armenian Social Council, the Yazidi Youth, the Kurdistan Youth Union and the Iraqi Democratic Youth Union.
A similar conference, the 1st World Youth Conference, was held in Paris in November 2023 with more than 400 young people from over 40 countries taking part.
The conference is organised by the Middle East Youth Initiative and will follow the aims of “strengthening coordination between youth organizations from the region, discussing existing issues and crises as well as searching for radical solutions”. The organising committee consists of different movements from Iraq, Yemen, Syria, Egypt, Mauritania, Armenia, Kurdistan, Sudan, Afghanistan and the West Sahara.
In a statement published on the conference’s website, it is explained that the youth in the Middle East and North Africa face an “ongoing crisis in the region, with the despotism of the nation-states from one side, and the looting policies of imperialist states on the other”. Stating that it is the youth “who carry and maintain the flame of hope for the future of societies”, the Middle East Youth Initiative calls on “all the freedom seeking youth to organize themselves and become a force against the thousand year old system of slavery and oppression”.
The problems that the youth are faced with are further elaborated: “Youth are victims of the reality in the region, there are huge numbers of unemployed youth suffering from poverty and misery, running after an empty purposeless life, as well as the misguided use of technology and drug addiction that makes young people unconscious and keeps them disconnected from reality and makes them lose their identity”.
The statement also highlighted the youth’s special role in solving society’s problems, noting that “Youth are the driving force for change in societies” and that they “play a crucial role in shaping the future”.
The Initiative states that they will address and find solutions to issues such as “the ecological crisis, justice and equality, violence and oppression against women”, while giving “the utmost importance to women’s freedom and empowerment in all spheres of life”.
To end the statement, the Middle East Youth Initiative calls to young people to work together “for a more humane, just and prosperous world”.
