Jenin – MIFTAH recently signed a cooperation and understanding agreement with the Faculty of Law and Legal Clinic at the Arab-American University in Jenin, as part of its goal to empower and encourage young leaders to participate in public and political life. It also aims to create an interactive and dialogue-friendly environment in universities, based on the principles of democracy, equality, respect for public freedoms and for combatting discrimination, exclusion and marginalization.

This cooperation is part of MIFTAH’s Good Governance and Democracy Program, implemented in partnership with UNFPA. The program includes the development of a discrimination index in Palestinian universities in the West Bank and Gaza Strip as a tool to measure discrimination and discern the gaps in the level of political, social, economic and cultural rights for university students. This provides information and data that could help develop practical steps for decision-makers in universities in the formulation of policy reform, regulations and systems towards enhancing the principles of democracy.

At a later stage, a group of students will be trained on the use of the index through data collection, based on a survey to measure students’ viewpoints on policies and procedures implemented on campus. It should be noted that this is also being applied to a group of students at the Palestine University in the Gaza Strip.

MIFTAH will present on the results of the discrimination index surveys through dialogue sessions and an e-platform of the index itself.