What is "Safar"?

 Safar, meaning travel in Arabic, is also the name of our program "Safar: Youth Mobility Fund". The program supports Arab youth in their travel in the Arab world providing them with the air tickets and / or other travel expenses. The aim of Safar is to help youth pursue a healthy process of growth that permits them to develop their own experience and knowledge and hence their communities'. It also provides the space and opportunities to pursue their own learning paths. 

Project Vision:
To develop an environment where Arab youth who are active within their communities to experience a healthy process of growth that permits them to develop their individual (and collective) experiences and knowledge, and provide them with the space and opportunities to pursue their own learning paths.

:Project Goal
To contribute to building a culture of learning, initiative and inspiration amongst youth in the Arab World

Overall Objectives:

1.  Provide human, financial and material resources for young people within the Arab world to search for their own learning spaces and pursue alternative learning opportunities.
   
2.  Search for and research youth initiatives in the Arab world to provide information regarding individuals and institutions with which youth can link with their "learning journeys" and examples of inspiring youth initiatives; and space to engage in exploration and exchange of experiences, ideas, concepts and understandings.


3. Provide inspiring examples – i.e., make visible the less visible/invisible initiatives of young people (alternatives to dominant discourse of consumer culture).



4.  Ensure youth ownership in the choice of their learning paths as well as the formulation of Safar program itself.

Safar has many components:

1. Travel Grants
2. Regional Events
3. Resources' development
4. Database development
Please note that more information is available in the Arabic version of the web site.
The Safar travel grants consist of three different types:
Apprenticeship grants (tajawor) to learn from individuals with specialized knowledge and experience in a particular field of work. The apprentice learns at first-hand from this individual.

Visitation grants (tazawor) are given to visit an institution, initiative or an inspiring youth group, in order to learn from their experiences.

Events grants are given to attend a meeting, event or workshop concerned with or which promotes the development of youth initiatives.

General rules:

• Travel grants will stay limited within the Arab World only and for Arab youth living in Arab countries

• Provision of an invitation letter from the host and preferably a contribution too is a requirement.

• All aspects of the work will be documented in the form of minutes as well as reflections of participants and staff.

• The applicants’ age should range between 15-35 except for the partner organizations’ application that can exceed 35 of age if the partner organization requested to have this person to be a trainer, facilitator or mentors for an apprenticeship.

Age

• 15-35 years for individual applicants
• 35 and up for those applicants submitted via institutions who will serve as "mentors" in tajawor or facilitator or trainer.

Youth Travel Grantees

• Active youth and/or involved in youth initiatives stemming out of conviction and passion based on experience and reflections towards mutual learning
• Volunteers or workers in youth organizations or organizations working with youth

Costs Covered

• 100% of ticket + transportation
• Accommodation and other learning tools if necessary.

We hope that by offering a mobility fund with these three components/criteria, young people would be encouraged to take initiative, search for their own learning, design their learning opportunities, and develop additional initiatives. New initiatives should reflect their own construction of knowledge and personal views of where and how they feel their society needs to move to match their dreams and ambitions. This would also be accompanied by assigning new meanings to commonly used words as well as coining new words that reflect more accurately and concretely the youths’ experiences and newly discovered knowledge.

Who Runs Safar?

The Safar program is one of the Arab Education Forum (AEF) projects (www.almoultaqa.com) in Jordan run by a regional coordinator and a supporting team in the regional office of the AEF. The implementation of this program is also supervised by a General Assembly (As’haab Safar) which consists of 23 youth and youth workers from 13 different Arab countries.