First of all, let me introduce myself quickly: My name is Ghassan Essalehi, I am 17 years old, a high school student final year, and an English Young Learner at the British Council.

I am glad to tell you I was recently chosen to participate in a project organized by the British Council, thus, me and another man from Casablanca, in his 20s, as we were the only two participants from Morocco, travelled to Tunisia., The project is called Reach Out and it is a British Council initiative linked to the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS).The aim is to encourage young people and encourage debate on culturally important issues. This project is organized in the North Africa and Near East Region (NENA) and UK. You may ask; Why this region? NENA was chosen simply because this is where WSIS phase II is being held and, young people from the countries in this region can benefit from each others experiences to deliver these pilot projects, that’s what the British Council thinks, and I completely agree with them.

‘Reach out’ started in August 2005 with an online forum inviting young Arab and UK people to share their comments and thoughts on issues such as ‘gender equality through ICTs, freedom to information, etc.’

In November the best online contributors were selected to continue the debate face-to-face in Tunis via video conference to the UK. During the face-to-face event the group of selected young people were asked to offer recommendations for change and, together, we will agree which of these proposals to take forward as a ‘reach out’ project.

I spent six days in Tunisia where we had two videoconferences with our colleagues in Oxford. We talked and discussed many topics related to Technology issues that today’s youth have, and how can we, as young people in general, and Arab youth, take advantage of this technology.

There were some 22 participants from 8 countries, which are: Morocco, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Palestine and Kuwait as well. All of them were young, no older than 26, I guess, and I was the youngest with another girl from Tunisia.

We had the opportunity to meet many persons, company directors, policy makers such as the British minister of trade, the Director General of the British Council, the Regional Director, Near East and North Africa, senior representatives of British Council, also, a student at Harvard University, School Of Government, and the director of Philippine Resources Sustainable Development, and the staff of the youth international organization, TakingITGlobal, who kindly invited us to a dinner, which celebrated their organisation’s birthday.

We also had a breakfast with Her Majesty’s Ambassador to the United Nations, and also to Tunisia.

This was a networking opportunity and provided me with the chance to share some of my views with the policy makers.

As a Moroccan, I had the opportunity to meet my country’s delegation, which was chaired by our Prime Minister who I met in the Exhibition, and our Industry minister, and some other representatives from different fields, and which I had the chance to tell them about the Reach Out program by which they were impressed.

However, this is just the beginning, as Mr. The British trade minister said, we have to continue our projects in our countries once we are back, and go on.

Personally, I have got in touch with a Moroccan daily newspaper to tell them about our project, and I am meeting them these days to enlighten the purpose of the project.

Our two colleagues in Palestine have got in touch with “Al-Quds”, and “Al Ayam” which are International well-known newspaper, and the radio as well to clarify what this project is, and what is its aim. The same thing is being done by my colleague in Kuwait.

As I have already said, or Mr. the Minister told us, it is only the beginning, we still have many things to do, therefore we have to carry on working together. In the British Council, we believe in the mutual aid; We all have dreams, we all have hopes, we should work together to build a better future.

We, the participants, will manage the project development and implementation, with support from the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) and our local British Council offices. We will lead projects for change at grass roots level and help make a difference in their countries.

I would be glad to let you know about the continuity of the project in the future, and I will be also happy to hear any comments from you, or ideas via my e-mail: our Reach Out group in Yahoo:  http://uk.groups.yahoo.com/group/reachout_project.