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West Bank and Gaza Youth Connect Through Web Portal
FrontLines - December-January 2009-10
RAMALLAH—A Web portal is
giving Palestinian youth a way
to communicate and collaborate
despite restrictions on movement
and access. The portal is the first
of its kind in the West Bank and
Gaza Strip.
Backers of the portal hope it
will contribute to a strong and
vibrant Palestinian economy
and development of the local
information and communications
technology market.
“All of us are working
together to develop this portal
system,” Jihad Jadallah told
listeners at the April 23 kick off
of the Palestinian Youth Portal
program. Jadallah is one of over
a dozen youth trainers providing
Web content for the portal,
Shababgate.ps. Shabab means
youth in Arabic.
USAID’s office in the
West Bank and Gaza funded
the portal’s development as
part of a contribution to the
U.S.-Palestinian Partnership
(UPP), a public-private development
alliance launched by
former Administrator Henrietta
H. Fore in December 2007.
“We came here trying to think
outside of the box,” says Robert
Schware, managing director of
USAID’s Global Learning Portal
(GLP) development alliance,
who has developed educational
portals in several countries in
multiple languages. “How do
we help jumpstart the local
economy through open source
applications?”
Open source applications
consist of digital information
that can be freely used, distributed,
and modified.
The answer was to engage
young people. By connecting
with members of Youth
Development and Resource
Centers (YDRCs), Shababgate
was conceived as a one-stopshop
where Palestinian youth
can access all relevant information
resources through a single
Web site. “We have a responsibility—
all of us—to provide
young people with opportunities
for knowledge,” said Deputy
Minister of Youth and Sports
Musa Abu Zaid.
The portal allows users to
share information in Arabic and
English, contribute to its digital
library, blog, organize through
a database, and collaborate on
youth service initiatives involving
the four YDRCs and their
affiliated youth clubs.
The Palestinian Youth Portal
and other GLP efforts run on
open source software that can be
shared and modified.
“You don’t have to pay
expensive licensing fees, and
you can share the knowledge
gained in product development,”
said Ala Alaeddin, manager of
Intertech, the Palestinian company
developing Shababgate.
“In this way, it is very costeffective.”
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Palestinian youth upload information on the Youth Portal at the Youth Development and Resource
Center in Ramallah.
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Major Palestinian institutions
have yet to integrate open source
information technology into their
systems. USAID and the GLP
hope that local development of
the portal will build the capacity
for using such technology within
Palestinian companies.
This is the first time that a
GLP has been developed in the
country where it will be used,
rather than back in Washington.
“We are very pleased and proud
of that fact,” said Thomas
Johnson, former USAID education
development office director.
Shababgate.ps was started
in August 2009 with a group of
youth from three YDRCs and
now has over 120 members sharing
content and participating in
discussion forums.
Others involved with the
portal’s creation include the
Palestinian Ministry of Youth
and Sports; the Palestinian
Information Technology
Association; international
information technology partners
including Intel, Google
and Cisco; and the Academy
for Educational Development,
USAID’s implementing partner
for the Global Learning Portal
★
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