Press Conference – Work for Work Campaign – Final Results Presentation

This is the verbatim script from the press conference held at the Civil Development Organisation (CDO) office in Sulaymaniyah, where youth campaigners from Halabja, Ranya and Chamchamal presented the outcomes of their six-month “Work for Work” campaign under the Networks of Change II programme.

Good evening, respected audience. My name is Sham, and I am a graduate of the English Language Department from Charmo University and a resident of Halabja.

On behalf of all the youth of Halabja, Chamchamal, and Ranya, we welcome you and thank you for your attendance.

Dears, today we are here to announce the results of a youth campaign called “Work for Work” that was carried out over the past six months by us and thousands of youth from three cities of Halabja, Ranya, and Chamchamal, as a core part of the Networks of Change II program.

The idea of the Work for Work campaign was designed by 21 youth from Ranya, Chamchamal, and Halabja, and emerged from the important need that youth faced several obstacles when searching or trying to find jobs, the most important of which were: lack of youth experience and high experience requirements from employers, lack of balance between skills in the education process and the job market, and working as volunteer for a long period without clarity.

Dear friends, we decided to roll up our sleeves and find solutions!

Work for Work was a comprehensive campaign from youth to youth for strengthening capabilities, increasing awareness, and making our voices heard.

We, the youth, must be pioneers in leadership for positive change in our communities in a peaceful and moderate way.

We named our campaign Work for Work because in reality, us youth must strive and work seriously to achieve the work we dream of.

Dear audience, our campaign had five main objectives consisting of:

1. Familiarizing students with departments that will have more job opportunities in the future in coordination with universities and schools.
2. Advocating for the rights of long-term volunteers in the public sector so they can benefit from the experience they gained through coordination with the government.
3. Connecting job seekers with employers by strengthening coordination and creating dialogue and understanding between youth and the private sector.
4. Spreading awareness among youth to pay attention to the tradition of developing their skills after graduating from universities and institutes in preparation for the job search process.
5. Providing professional training for youth in fields that are currently in high demand by employers through free training at youth centers in the cities with the help of experienced youth from the Networks of Change program.

Now we present to you what we did in our campaign to investigate the obstacles we youth face in our cities.

Our campaign was built on three main pillars that are pathways for identifying solutions:

First Pillar: Universities

With great coordination and thanks through the universities in our cities, we collected information about all colleges and graduation rates from the universities of Halabja, Charmo, and Raparin, and conducted analysis according to job market trends.

Also, in cooperation with the CDCs (Career Development Centers) at universities, we contacted university students and graduates to understand their needs and align academic programs with market demands.

Second Pillar: Government

Organizing volunteer work and volunteer rights in government institutions requires a lot of work. Therefore, through our discussions with the administrative parties of all three cities, we tried to solve the obstacles of long-term volunteering, and we emphasized the negative effects of lack of job opportunities and the importance of the government’s role in strengthening coordination between different parties to support youth. It is praiseworthy that the local governments provided us with endless cooperation and support, and we were amazed by their readiness to reduce our obstacles!

Third Pillar: Private Sector

We coordinated with employers in the cities of Halabja, Chamchamal, and Ranya to understand the needs of establishments and the obstacles they face when searching for suitable and skilled job seekers. We also encouraged them to provide more opportunities for fresh graduates by increasing training and coaching for learning and gaining professional experience. Again, here we discovered that doors are open for us youth and that the vast majority of employers in our three cities care about the youth of their own cities as their main objective!

Now we present to you what our future plan is!

Good evening, respected audience. My name is Mohammed, and I am a graduate of the English Language Department from Charmo University and a resident of Chamchamal.

From the results of our visits and research, we discovered that the fields with the highest demand are:

Medical fields such as chemistry, biology, nursing, physiotherapy, and pharmacy because the population rate is increasing and the health sector is progressing.

Foreign language departments such as English and Arabic, because they facilitate finding job opportunities, especially social media and communication work, which has increased significantly.

Engineering fields such as physics, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, and petrochemical engineering because investment in Kurdistan is increasing and these specialists are currently few and in high demand.

For the same reason, computer science, computer science, business administration, and marketing departments are in high demand.

At the same time, the departments with the least demand were: philosophy, history, geography, Kurdish language, water engineering, and geotechnical engineering.

We also prepared a memorandum for organizing volunteer work in the Kurdistan Region and advocating for volunteer rights as a legal project.

Dear audience, we do not stop here… To continue the impact of our campaign, we will take the following steps:

We will strengthen direct contact with decision-makers and authorities by visiting the Kurdistan Parliament to communicate the recommendations and results of our campaign, especially to guarantee volunteer rights by establishing laws protecting volunteer rights in the public and private sectors.

At the same time, we will continue to be in contact with parliamentarians who represent our cities to follow up and emphasize this issue. We also do not stop here and will reach the Iraqi Parliament so that all youth of this country can benefit.

Then we will start discussions with the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs to organize training for fresh graduates in coordination with government institutions and the private sector.

At the same time, we are in contact with investment departments and directorates in our cities to make training, coaching, and protecting the rights of youth in our cities a condition for any new investor investing in our cities.

In addition, we will present recommendations and suggestions to the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research for balance between education programs and the job market and giving importance to departments that are currently in demand in the job market.

Keep your eyes on our social media and find us by searching for the words and hashtag Work for Work or Networks of Change, and visit us at youth centers in all three cities of Halabja, Ranya, and Chamchamal. Also participate in the trainings organized for you, free of charge at the centers.

These centers are part of the achievements of our previous campaigns and are a platform for us youth to strengthen our capabilities, exchange experiences, and plan our work and activities.

But dear audience, we still have more to tell you about what we’ve done! 😀

Good evening, respected audience. My name is Zhivan, and I am a graduate of the Nursing Department from Duhok University and a resident of Ranya.

Dear audience, in this short time we had, we did much more work and activities with the youth of our cities, for example:

• We raised awareness among 300 preparatory students about making the right choice in higher education and familiarized them with departments that are in demand in the job market.
• 50 youth benefited from workshops on CV writing techniques and job interview skills.
• We conducted 3 workshops in partnership with university CDCs at Halabja, Raparin, and Charmo universities for university students and fresh graduates, where they learned about entrepreneurship, planning, and management skill development.
• We provided work experience for 40 youth in several different fields by private companies and the private sector in Halabja and Ranya, where they gained work experience in an academic and practical way for 2 months with provision of basic expenses, and we followed up on their professional advancement. We showed that this is the right way to encourage youth to learn and gain work experience.
• We provided 100 job opportunities for youth in Chamchamal in several different fields, as a result of coordination with the private sector and participation of 22 companies and border employers in the first job fair that we campaign organizers arranged, and we follow up on them and present the results.
• We supported 50 young entrepreneurs in Ranya by organizing a youth festival and their participation in marketing their products, which itself creates more job opportunities with the advancement of these entrepreneurial projects.
• 50 youth and students participated with us in the hackathon “Youth Problem Solver” in Ranya, where 7 project ideas for benefiting from the potential of Raparin area youth in youth capability and encouraging entrepreneurship in the region were presented to the university, youth, and private sector.
• We organized a film week in Chamchamal to familiarize youth with success stories through cinema and create an opportunity to gather them and create discussion and networking.
• We participated in all activities, events, and national commemorations in Halabja, Ranya, and Chamchamal to convey the voice of youth.
• More than 5,000 youth participated in our work and activities, and through online means our message reached nearly 2 million youth.
• We successfully managed to change the perspective of local employers regarding the professional capabilities of youth in these cities.

What more do you want? All of this is what we accomplished in 6 months hahahaha 😀

Dear audience, we accomplished all of this with a small budget and in a very short time. Consider what we youth can achieve over a long period? We can truly make a great change in our communities with the support of all parties in a peaceful and moderate way.

Finally, we sincerely thank and appreciate those people and parties who supported us in the campaign:

• SPARK organisation and Civil Development Organization (CDO) for supervising and organizing our work and activities through the Networks of Change programme, which has been ongoing for more than 6 years and is much broader than what we discussed, and has truly created a wide network of positive change in Kurdistan.
• The Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs for financial support in our campaign.
• Administrative parties of all three cities of Halabja, Ranya, and Chamchamal for facilitating work and helping us.
• Government institutions and parliamentarians for helping to facilitate dialogue and communication.
• Universities for their valuable support and helping us collect information.
• Employers and local companies for their readiness to professionally help youth.
• Media and broadcasting channels for raising our voice and showing our efforts to raise youth awareness.

Most importantly, we thank those youth who actively participated in our campaign, believe in their own strength, and are ready to make change in a moderate way – those youth who refuse to wait for change but instead create change themselves!

Together we reaffirm our commitment to strengthening youth capabilities, creating opportunities, and building a future where youth receive competence and support for self-confidence and advancement of society, Kurds, and Kurdistan.