A workshop entitled "Civil organisations and their role in strengthening civil peace"

Continuing its efforts and within the series of workshops and meetings organised by the Palestinian Center for Democracy and Conflict Resolution under the project "Women for civil peace", which includes preparing meetings and workshops at universities and organisations to strengthen women's role in civil peace and to produce outputs and recommendations on the mechanism for activating women's role, the Centre organised a workshop at Al-Aqsa University entitled "Civil organisations and their role in strengthening the concept of civil peace". The workshop's guests were Dr. Marouf Nasser (formerly legal adviser to the Palestinian Ministry of Culture) and Mrs. Amal Hamad (member of the Revolutionary Council of the Fatah movement), and the workshop targeted the student leadership group at the university. The workshop was run by the project coordinator, Karam Abu Muailaq, who introduced the Palestinian Center for Democracy and Conflict Resolution and gave an overview of the Centre's main achievements in this field. The guests discussed several strands during the workshop, beginning with Dr. Marouf's legal definition of civil (non-governmental) organisations and their divisions. He stressed the foundations for strengthening social peace in societies, the most important of them being: the legitimacy and centrality of authority, social justice, the rule of law, the independence of the judiciary, and respect for human rights and the rights of minorities, and he discussed with the audience the reality of peace in Palestine. Mrs. Amal then discussed the role civil organisations are supposed to play in strengthening civil peace and the actual role these organisations play. Mrs. Amal stressed the need to put forward solutions for activating the role of the civil organisations, which are spread widely across the country's governorates and whose number has come to exceed 3,000 associations and organisations, in order to advance the factors of social development as it ought to be. Many questions were also put by the student leaders to the guests about the spread of these organisations across the country and whether they have in fact contributed to the process of social development, or whether they go no further than carrying out projects. Mrs. Amal also discussed the role of Palestinian women inside these organisations: does it really rise to the role hoped of them as effective participants in the process of community development, or does it go no further than a role created in order to attract projects? The workshop produced recommendations and outputs from the students and the guests, the most important of them being: • Moving out of the circle of criticism and isolation in assessing the work of civil organisations and institutions and their role, and taking the initiative and leading the process of reforming these organisations and steering them towards the constructive and major role of serving the Palestinian cause. • Making women working in civil organisations aware and educating them about the importance of their role in social development, and raising general community awareness of this role, which remains noticeably inactive.