In June 2016, Shroq and her colleagues, mostly Yemeni women, established a youth-led initiative. They named the initiative “Takween”, which translates in Arabic as “Creation” and/or “crafting”. To them, it relates to the creation of everything artistic and promising, and of course joyful.
When the initiative was established in 2016, Shroq was still a student in the School of Architecture and Environmental Planning . The idea of establishing an initiative stemmed from the drive Shroq and her fellow friends had to contribute in community volunteering services. Utilizing her leadership skills, she organized a couple of unofficial meetings (some in the College general cafeteria and others during girls’ social gathering).
Once formed, members of Takween, intensely committed to making a change in their local communities, began their work with young children. To them, young children need to form dreams that are directly tied to their future. More importantly, they need to have a reason to pursue their education and not drop out of schools. Because if they drop out or flunk in school, they become an easier target for armed and/or extremist groups whose first resort is violence. Takween’s resolve was to help young children love schools by helping them with their lessons while concurrently teaching them some art (drawing, reading, acting….etc). This way, children grow to fulfill their potential.
Soon, Takween realized they needed to formalize their organizational structure. They unanimously selected Shroq Al-Ramadi as their executive director. Shroq decided to involve Takween in more civic engagement activities. Takween knew that they could not make a change in the perspectives against of the people in their communities unless they included youth in their target groups. Shroq took an important step in the development of the initiative and began targeting young people in Hadhramot with activities that were anti-conflict, and aim at further honing youths’ skills .
In late 2020, Shroq and her team at Takween learned about an opportunity called “My solution initiative”. Recognizing that the participation of youth is essential for sustainable approaches to peacebuilding, this initiative aims to promote and showcase success stories of young Yemeni peacebuilders. UNESCO and RNW Media launched an open call in August 2020 inviting young Yemenis to submit their “solutions” for peace in their country. Seven promising initiatives have been selected and have been supported to further develop their ideas and projects. These solutions, referred to as “My Solution”, aside from being developed by youth, are led by socially active young people from the civil society, and they target young Yemeni people across the country.
Takween was one of the seven winners of the opportunity provided by the project. Members of Takween knew instantly that they could invest in their collective and diverse skills to promote for peace. Takween decided to utilize art in its different forms (drawings, short videos, social media posters, writing and content development …etc) to counter-fight narratives of violence while concurrently restoring youth’s trust in peace and security. Takween strives to do that providing a safe space for artists and the cultural practitioners and encourage the youth to speak up and express.
Determined as they are to make an impact, the team in Takween proceeded to implement the activities of their application. The activities include writing stories and developing media content and material that helps young Yemeni people restore their trust in peace and security, while more importantly restoring “hope” in young Yemenis and the future of Yemen.
This summarizes the first activity in Takween’s participation as part of this project whereby Takween published several posters over social media platforms.
Also utilizing the “mysolution” support, Takween has been able to live-broadcast interviews on social media platforms with prominent Yemeni youth (youtubers and social media influencers) who have successfully overcome challenges and broke all limits in order to live eye-opening experiences that changed their perspectives and/or ignited courage to live their aspiration despite any of the challenging conditions surrounding them. This activity has the aim of inspiring youth to speak up their aspirations and advocating for them in youth platforms.
Takween’s last activity as part of this grant is engaging youth in an open-day activity that encourages youth to freely speak their minds using art. This allows youth to creatively express their aspiration in peace. Utilizing this activity, Takween drives youth to be a constructive force for positive change by allowing them the space to propose solutions and taking actions that advocates for and be in support of the peace-building process.
Shroq goes on explaining the challenges that members of Takween encounter. These challenges range between society’s discouragement and unrecognition of women’s contributions in youth activities, feeling the society’s un-appreciation of art, being targeted for criticism, and being accused of being disoriented as to the priorities of the society. Takween and all its members, according to Shroq, are persistent and will remain focused on the purpose – that is to spread a culture that promotes for peace and security while rejecting violence.
Takween is a youth-led cultural club that aims at fine-tuning youth skills and empowering them to spread peace through their creative skills.
To know more about Takween: https://www.facebook.com/TakweenYemen/
This initiative is part of the United Nation Peace Building funded project “Empowering Yemeni youth towards peace: ensuring access to information and participation”, UNESCO and RNW Media are currently implementing in Yemen.The 18-months project aims to empower young Yemenis in support of the Peacebuilding process in Yemen. The project, in its primary objective, commits to making the peace-building process more inclusive and participatory, thereby providing young Yemenis with safe spaces of dialogue and participation. This also contributes to strengthening youth engagement.
