Mobaderoon is a Syrian non-governmental network widely known across Syria. It was founded in August 2010, promoting active citizenship through training and youth development, giving workshops for young people and promoting peace messages. Mobaderoon is a network of active volunteers in social development, who work in their institutions and organisations, and contribute to launching social initiatives in their society.
In 2014, Mobaderoon won the Livia Foundation Award for its peaceful approach working in a country that suffer from conflict, also it won the Economic Citizenship Education award 2017 for its “FADA and Life Street” projects. Mobaderoon works towards the vision of building trust and mutual understanding between people in communities, depending on a set of values like equal opportunities, dialogue, acceptance, mutual understanding, non-violence and peace.
Mobaderoon has been implementing Aflatoun programmes in Syria since 2012. They have trained more than 650 Syrian facilitators on Aflatoun, Aflateen and Aflatot programmes in seven Syrian governorates. Those 650 trainers were able to conduct, with the support of Mobaderoon and its partners, more than 600 clubs reaching more than 12,000 beneficiaries.
Mobaderoon always develops its programmes to meet the changing needs of communities and tailored Aflatoun’s education to different governorates inside Syria. Based on these experiences, and in close collaboration with Mobaderoon, Aflatoun International developed Life Skills and Education for Peace, a unique programme fostering peace and community development. At the International Meeting in November 2016, the first official copy of this peacebuilding manual was handed over to Mobaderoon’s founder Ms Ghada Rifai, who read a message of peace and hope from pupils back in Syria.
The peacebuilding programme has the potential to assist in conflict transformation by giving children and young people the skills to promote understanding and critical thinking vital to analyse the underlying cause(s) of conflict. They become active participants in society and can develop their skills to stimulate local economies through the creation of micro enterprises, which has the power to contribute to sustainable peacebuilding. While children and young people are often the victims in the Syrian war, they are also potential peacebuilders and menders of the social fabric as they are called upon to rebuild their broken economy.
