Funding Project - Our city our way

Al-Mina Our City : Our Way `Friendly Youth City' Our City Our Way project is promoting active citizenship, initiative, participation and responsibility and this is what we lack for in our countries. This is not just a technical capacity-building project, but the main goal is to empower young people to practice active citizenship and to enrich their initiative and participation spirit. Before this project was completed and before re-designing a neighborhood of the youths' selection in the El-Mina city. We worked to develop the technical skills of the youth, enhance their citizenship culture and enrich their knowledge about the city's components and needs. Therefore, this ideal neighborhood came as a natural result of a full year of successive workshops that led the youth group to develop the final vision of the neighborhood as they see it in accordance with the knowledge they have acquired and in line with the capabilities available to them. The partners played a pivotal role in this project, both the Arab University of Beirut, which worked to empower the youth technically and the municipality of Al-Mina that adopted this project and decided with the effort of its members to expand this project as far as possible. This project is co-funded by the European Union within the framework of the regional programme Med Culture. The Safadi Cultural Foundation is working in partnership with Beirut Arab University, which has been involved in the social and cultural movement in the city, and Al Mina Municipality, which aims to develop the economic, social, urban and cultural state of the city. Project duration: February 2017—January 2018 Project code: 02-01053 Goals and objectives Our City Our Way aims to empower 30 youths from AI Mina city by building their capabilities in urban design, cartography, model making and proposal writing. ■The goal is to allow 30-trained youths to directly lead the design of a specific landscape project aligned with the model of a child-friendly city. 'The implementation of the project will be executed in a specific neighborhood in Al Mina. Learning Dimension OD to 7D (1D Writing - 2D Drawing/Photography/ Cartography - 3D Modeling - 4D Movie Maker - 5D Simulation / GIS Augmented Reality - 6D Fabrication - 7D Realization) The project plan was developed based on the learning dimensions OD to 7D. This learning process aims to develop the youth skills on all dimensions. OD includes sessions of ideation and concept generation through dialogues and brainstorming. 1D includes the writing workshops in which the youth learned to write in a methodological way. 2D is drawing, photography and cartography. Reading a map, drawing a quick sketch or taking photos of a potential neighborhood are all practical tools essential toward a more realistic vision. 3D included learning tools like Sketch up which is a three-modeling software. 4D is movie making which can be used to reflect a more realistic vision. 5D is simulation techniques like learning GIS, augmented reality and analysis skills. 6D included fabrication skills necessary to build physical models. 7D is the final realization of the youth vision. Throughout this process, the students were able to see their basic ideas turning step by step into reality.