2015-11-16

 After 11 months of competition and contests, the "Pioneers" project, which strengthened and developed young Arab leaders, came to an end on Friday 11/13/2015. Amal Aoun and Adnan Masri won the first prize, the title of ‘leader’, and a financial prize of $ 1,500 for each.

The ‘Leaders’ Project began with tests to select 16 candidates. These candidates were then put through a series of trainings and competitions. Each of these were evaluated by a jury which consisted of Amal Jamal, Abdul Halim and Tom Mohajer. As the competition progressed the jury narrowed the group of participants until it reached the final five candidates. The final five participants were Haya Abu Ahmed (Nazareth), Yaqeen Gharaba (Reineh), Murad Khalilia (Jaffa Nazareth), Adnan Nasri (Gdaydeh- Maker) and Amal Aoun (Nazareth).

Competitions included both individual and collective tests. Participants built programs for community development, presented to their local councils, engaged in a mock election in a school in Nazareth, were interviewed, and finally gave a speech in front of the jury.

This project was funded through the generous support of the Hanns Seidel Foundation in Germany. In addition to photographs of each event, there will be a film summary of the project from the beginning to the end that will be published on I’lam’s Youtube Channel. Based upon this success of the project I’lam is currently working to continue this project next year.