The Palestinian Youth Portal

President Obama’s speech in Cairo, Egypt, had a comment about providing youth in Cairo and the broader Muslim world the opportunity to connect with young people in Kansas City and the U.S. in general.

The Palestine-Israel peace process also requires job creation, which includes microfinance and IT support for small business in the West Bank. (More on microfinance shortly; I’ll be asking for your opinions.)

I’m now helping, in a very small way, the U.S.-Palestinian partnership, with the cooperation of the U.S. State Department, USAID, the Israeli government and the Palestinian Authority.

Toward those ends, the US-Palestinian partnership, along with USAID, is helping build the Palestinian Youth Portal:

* “One-stop shop” for Youth Development Resource Centers (YDRC) and affiliated youth clubs.
* Develop a network among youth to support communication and collaboration among youth in Palestine and abroad.
* Provide access to quality learning resources and tools (both in English and Arabic) relevant to local youth and youth professionals

Benefits include:

* Cost savings.
* Exposure to a widely used platform.
* Experience in working with international teams
* Experience managing multi-stake holder demands and expectations

The PYP is still being tested, but will go live next month. Estimated number of youth having access to the PYP in just the three YDRCs and their network of affiliated youth clubs is about 35,000. This will be the core user group. Other Palestinian youth in high schools and universities will also be encouraged to use it.