Qatar University students on a 12-day volunteer mission in Tunisia.
Education Above All (EAA) foundation, through its programme Reach Out To Asia (ROTA) recently partnered with Qatar University (QU) to send 20 of its male students on a 12-day volunteer mission to Tunisia, as part of its International Volunteer Trips programme.
The students travelled to Ain Draham city in north-western Tunisia, located in the Jendouba Governorate; a region rich in natural resources, but that suffers from high levels of poverty and unemployment, with higher dropout rates than the national average.
National vocational training programmes designed to respond to the needs of dropouts fall short of meeting the needs of young people in that area, where both literacy and job readiness are generally much lower.
There are over 130,700 hectares of public, forested land, covering around 42 percent of the governorate. These forests are rich in raw materials, which after collection and transformation, have high economic value.
There is also a large potential for eco-tourism in the region.
In collaboration with in-country partner Mercy Corps, ROTA volunteers worked with a local Ain Draham community youth group, to develop and establish an eco-tourism trail. The ‘Ain Draham Trail’ will serve as a recreational attraction for visitors and tourists looking for a safe and enjoyable experience in nature, as well as offer a sustainable source of revenue for the local community.
Activities included identifying locations and setting up signage for start and end points, waypoints, building bridges, kiosks, fences and rest areas in different locations within the forest using natural resources, information boards, as well as organising a formal launch for the trail.
Volunteer students also participated in a ‘Youth Social Entrepreneurship’ training workshop, facilitated by ROTA’s partner, Mercy Corps.
