Civic skills via media education in Palestine Medialukutaidolla kohti kestävää yhteiskuntaa The project aims at offering media literacy education to Palestinian non-governmental organization (NGO) practitioners journalists and municipality workers by arranging hands-on workshops and theoretical training on media literacy and the importance of med
ia ethics social media and marketing in the new media context.In Palestine where an enabling media system is still in its infancy professionally adopting new media tools is very challenging. The use of social media for information sharing and civic activis
m is very much on the rise in the area and there is wide demand for social media education among local media professionals. By arranging workshops and trainings in cooperation with Birzeit University's Media Development Center (MDC) responsible for the rec
ently developed Palestinian National Media Strategy different kinds of target groups can effectively be reached.Main goals of the project are:1. To encourage public debate as part of an open and democratic society and effective market economy. 2. To streng
then local participants? know-how and professionalism.3. As a result of the first two goals and as cross-cutting goal to promote equality democracy and human rights.These goals are formulated in cooperation with the MDC and are based on local needs and obj
ectives defined by local actors. The overall objective is to support Palestine not to be left out of the fast-paced development of global media. The project directly supports the implementation of the ground-breaking National Media Strategy.Main outputs of
 the project are:1. Training courses (with a distance learning option) on media literacy ethics tools and marketing in a social media context in two West Bank locations.2. Permanent online learning environment in Arabic and English.The concrete output of t
he project in addition to training courses is creation of a permanent open access learning environment where also a newly established Media Literacy Manual will be available both in Arabic and in English and can therefore be used for various situations reg
ardless of time and place. A print manual has successfully been used in MDC?s trainings. This manual however is somewhat obsolete and needs updating.Online material has almost unlimited dissemination potential and this would help us disseminate our project
 results outside the Palestinian Territories. (For more on the Finnish utilization of the results please see section on Dissemination). This project is a continuation phase for the project ?Civic Skills via Media Education in Palestine? funded by the MFA in 2015?2016. It offered media education workshops for non-governmental workers professional journalists and municipality workers. The co
ntinuation project extend media literacy education to citizens. Project aims to empower young adults in Palestine to actively constructively and peacefully participate in building the society and democracy. Media the Fourth Estate of any functioning democr
acy ideally provides the citizens sufficient timely and accurate news information and versatile views for the citizens to make informed decisions in both the private and public spheres of their lives. As such properly functioning independent media builds d
emocracy and sustainable society.Project is implemented by creating curriculum for media literacy education training Palestinian media students and professionals and teachers to act media literacy trainers organizing media literacy courses in different par
ts of Palestine and creating open-access learning material in Arabic and English. The target groups are unprivileged Palestinian young adults people living at the refugee camps C-areas and Gaza. The project targets especially people living in these areas s
ince they have less opportunities for education and are more easily influenced by extreme group lobbying. The project focuses in targeting women because they are a marginalized group in Palestine facing more unemployment and discrimination. Courses offers 
training in media literacy media ethics and media production skills and offering local young adults work opportunities and international contacts. As it strengthens the target groups? media literacy skills the project also prevents radicalization and viole
nt extremism. The project personnel the trainers and course participants will produce journalistic content to be published in media channels in Finland Palestine or internationally as well as in social media. This will help to create a more balanced and fa
ct-based views on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for media audiences.