In a world marred with ethical and moral issues, diversity may have been placed under threat in light of recent socio-political changes and metamorphosis in the region. Myself and the Other is a Tech Tribes programme, in partnership with UNICEF’s UCAN initiative that aims to introduce a set of moral and ethical cornerstones in a group of local youths. For the period between January and July, the participants had been meeting on regular bases to participate in events that introduce various civil and social commentaries on the world they live in.

Exercises included community-based interactions; for example, the participants were asked to go onto the street and look for specific stereotypes, in order to break the barrier of the moulds in which they live. The partakers participated in multiple exercises including creating their own presentations to discuss specific issues that they saw fit, a field visit to the criminal court that was an eye opener to many of the participants who reported their initial shock upon hearing the cases, and a community exercise that taught the participants to map out the assets for any given community.

Myself and the Other goes deeper into providing knowledge and skills on planning and executing initiatives and interventions for social change. Participants have learned to create and structure sustainable teams, be aware of personality and work style differences in teams which result in effective role-assignments. Moreover, the trainees have been exposed to evaluation of their own desired roles in teams (including the UCAN network in its new structure) compared to their experiences and skills.

The program is expected to continue during the duration of Ramadan, which saw the participants dine at Tech Tribes’ HQ in Lweibdeh. Upon the completion of the Mapping Assets exercise, Ghassan Hilow, one of the participants in the program said “Myself and the Other really aids in knowing oneself better, and it’s this knowledge that helps you to know others and to learn how to deal with all the different types of people out there from every age, interest, religion and so on”, he added “The more I think of development, I’m becoming to realise that those who have less give more. Communities can build themselves from within and not depend on outsiders”.