Yemeni youth brief the UN Security Council
Click to watch Ola’s address. Photo: UN Photo/Eskinder Debebe
The remarkable efforts of Yemeni youth to bring peace in Yemen are being overlooked by a media that is only interested in death and destruction, Ola Alaghbary told the UN Security Council.
Ola, the founder and CEO of Sheba Youth Foundation was addressing the Security Council at the invitation of its president, the Norwegian Ambassador to the UN.
In Ola’s address, she spoke of the partnership work that Sheba had been part of, unifying the voices of young people across Yemen to influence and stable their place at the negotiating table.
Discussing the dangerous journey that she had personally had to make in order to even to just have secure enough connection to address the council remotely, Ola emphasized that “youth, women and civil society will not stop in the process of achieving stability and peacebuilding” for Yemen.
Ola set out five recommendations for the council:
Stressing the active participation of youth, women and civil society organizations that express the interests of the vast majority of Yemenis in peacebuilding mechanisms through the formation of a Civil Society Support Room and a Youth Advisory Council to consult and coordinate with the office of the UN Secretary-General’s envoy to Yemen.
Working with and increasing support for youth-and women-led civil society organizations, and building their capacities with genuine empowerment programs so they can effectively participate in the process of peacebuilding.
Focusing on supporting young women, for this group is not clearly and tangibly included in the group of male youth, nor in the group of women to whom international support is currently directed.
Directing support for the convening of the “Understandings on Taiz” committee, which is one of the outcomes of Stockholm Agreement in 2018, to include civil society working in mediation to reopen the main roads for citizens in Taiz City.
The presence of a focal point between the local mediators and the office of the UN envoy to Yemen.