ICSPR follows up the activities of the School Parliament in the Gaza Strip.
To create a generation of students who are aware of democracy principles, and the child rights, the International Commission to Support the Palestinian Rights (ICSPR) launched the School Parliament initiative, which led to form 85 school parliament in five provinces of the Gaza Strip, 35 of which is in Gaza City.
The School Parliament is a student body that imitates a real parliament in terms of conducting elections to select representatives through direct free election and forming various committees around the parliaments to build student leaders in various educational stages by providing them with leadership skills Said Suhail Abu al-Aaraj, the initiative coordinator.
He pointed out that forming a school parliament comes within the philosophy of ICSPR in enhancing the importance of human rights, especially the rights of the child as the children is about half of the Palestinian societys population. It is important to find the school parliament as a student framework within the educational institution. The initiative aims to enhance the students participation in discussing their issues and problems related to the school community and the Palestinian society. It also aims to enable the students to find solutions and submit recommendations to responsible bodies in the schools in order to achieve the goals higher educational goals of expressing opinion as a human right principle, in addition to enhancing the concept of democracy and human rights in schools.
Abu al-Aaraj continued the process of election in the school parliament is initially through electing a student from every class of the school classes, where the
student represents his/her class in the school parliament, and then these students elect the president of the parliament and his/her deputies and secretary.
Abu al-Aaraj explained we now have (35) elected parliament in five provinces in the Gaza Strip, pointing out that one of its objectives is to meet the various challenges and raise the responsibilities of the students and develop the students ability to possess life skills that are specific to the parliament, such as participation, democracy, consultation and cooperation. The parliament aims to discover the students talents and to break the fear barrier of the students.
He added At the end of the program, parliamentary sessions will be conducted in the five provinces in addition to closing ceremony. During these parliamentary sessions, students will discuss the most important issues. In the near future, we will cooperate with trainers who were parliament members in the previous years to train the students.
ICSPR follows up, supervises the School Parliament, and cooperates with the schools to organize the work and provide training courses for the students.
