What We Do...

The Young Artists Forum (YAF): is a Palestinian non-governmental and non-profit organization. It was officially established on 23rd of December 2002, and it’s located in Ramallah / Palestine , and its activities are expanded in every city in the West Bank. And It’s specialized in Fine Arts for Young Artists. YAF is registered formally by 3 Palestinian Ministries: the Ministry of Interior, the Ministry of Culture, and the Ministry of Education and Higher Education (Note that YAF has an evening school for the talented for all ages , and its curriculum is certified by the Ministry of Education and Higher Education, and each course has a graduation certificate, and it’s also acknowledged from the Ministry of Education and Higher Education). And YAF works on 2 main activities: (1) the evening school for the talented to train students in Fine Art, which is located in Ramallah, and (2) implementing educational projects in marginalized villages that target children and youth.

Our Vision :

“Our Institution aims to play a pioneer role in the Field of development through Art in an enlightened society that preserves Democracy, Human Rights, and the children living in peace and harmony”.

YAF tries to raise the art educational level among the society, and encourage everybody not to neglect it, and this can be achieved by the cooperation with the Ministry of Education; therefore, we could reach the schools through them. Also to train and take care of the young artists in fields of Fine Art and encourage and protect the artistic talent of children and Youth, and on enhancing their art abilities. It also tries to raise the democratic and humanitarian cultural awareness. The Forum considers the human investment as a priority, and believes in society as an important necessity, therefore, the Forum work for promoting the critical awareness of Young Artists and to make the children free from fear, hatred, and violence.

We realize that the key of change in the social thinking style in very vital; therefore, we consider that the artistic education in early ages is an educational, social and urgent need, and it’s very vital in our recent hard times in the Palestinian society. Arts can help treating a lot of psychological cases of the children that resulted from fear, Israeli violence, and destruction left by them, so YAF’s Purpose is to develop and improve the society in (a) the field of the youth and children education, and (b) improving the society through the children and youth.
As we mentioned YAF include 2 major activities:

First: Evening School

The curriculum of the evening school consists of 8 training levels of Fine Art training, each level is for 3 months, so that means that each student needs two years to accomplish the required curriculum, according to students, some of them take these levels successively and some divide them in different times . Every year 3 programs open for registry, the winter period, the summer period, and spring period. And at the end of each level there is a graduation certificate which is acknowledged from the Young Artists Forum, in addition, the certificates in the fourth and eighth levels are acknowledged from the Ministry of Education. For more information look at “art institute”

Second: Projects Implementation

It includes implementing projects in marginalized villages and camps in the west bank , with the assistance of national and international institutions such as the UNDP, UNESCO, Canada Fund, USAID, Diakonia, War Child Holland, Etc…
YAF works in various projects according to the objectives that we want to achieve , some of them are educational to enhance many important concepts for the youth and children, such as human right especially children’s and women rights, peace, democracy, respecting the law, and dialogs between different cultures. And some projects aims for enhancing the psychological health for children in marginalized villages, especially the ones that are harmed from the splitting wall that causes conflicts with the Israelis soldiers. And these activities are implemented by using art techniques (Drama , Fine Art) , and these projects also aims to training trainers , trainees and volunteers in educational clubs, and women and children associations that are located in these villages, and concentrating on developing the youth to be able to lead and to initiate in their own social environment, weather it was in the villages or the cities. And finally the projects that deals with schools, that aims to enhance and increase the fine art education in these schools in the primary levels , which indicated that 90% of the governmental schools don’t have any teachers specialized in Fine Art , or even had a collage degree in Fine Art. That’s why it’s important to enhance the teacher’s abilities in these areas.
The staff of the Forum is divided into two branches:

• Administrative staff: the Administrative staff are the staff that are paid a monthly salary and they are:

a) General Manager.
b) Project Manager.
c) The Evening School Artistic Manager.
d) Public relationships & Project coordinator.
e) Secretary.
f) Financial Manager.

• Artistic Staff: YAF trainers’ staff is professional Artists and has long experience in teaching the children, youth, and even the grownups the artistic material in local academies and universities, and the trainers hold either Bachelors or Masters Degree in Fine Arts. It also consists of a group of artists who are implementing the teaching work and field work (workshops, seminars, training courses, panels, etc). They are specialists, and work with limited contracts by a teaching hour, and this is giving the flexibility for the Forum for a change when it’s needed. And

YAF’s working methodologies :

1. The Program of improving the awareness of the society. (Art is a way)
2. The Program of Psychological health. (Art is a way)
3. The Program of training human resources. (Art is a way)
4. The Program of the Evening School. (Art is a will)

YAF is working on promoting Values for the staff and the target beneficiaries these values are:

• Belongingness.
• Participation.
• Transparency.
• Equalization.
• Voluntary work.

YAF’s Main Strategic Objectives:

1. Contribution in developing the education for the society.

• Raising the awareness of the youth in important concepts such as Peace among societies and respecting the Law.
  (Forgiveness, excepting each other, dialogs)

• Enhancing the concept of democracy and the human rights.

2. Enhancing the awareness of the art education.

• Assisting in raising the level of teaching Fine Art in schools.

• Enabling the youth to work in the field of Fine Art.

• Enabling the  talented artists on enhancing their Fine art abilities

3. Enhancing the psychological health for the Palestinian children through Art.

• Contribution in enhancing the self confidence and the confidence of others by aiming the child’s energy into various kinds of innovative fields.

• Enhancing the idea of participations among the different genders.

• Building the concept of leadership in the youth.