TERHAN, 20 June 2013 (UNFPA)—Youth Organization (YO) is one of Iranian Red Crescent affiliated organization which is working on capacity building and raising awareness of youth volunteers on humanitarian issues. Considering the mandate of YO and its capacity and based on one of UNFPA outputs on strengthening national capacity for preparedness and management of Reproductive Health Services in Emergency Situation, UNFPA started its joint project with YO in 2012. UNFPA overall objective for this collaboration is to raise awareness of university student YO volunteers on issues related to reproductive health in emergencies.
During the first year, three training workshops were conducted for female volunteers in three different pilot cities. Considering the positive feedback of the participants and YO authorities, it was decided that by end of the 5th country programme, UNFPA with collaboration of YO will conduct cascade workshops in all provinces by youth volunteer trainers in order to raise the awareness of the young people and women in their communities particularly in vulnerable or deprived communities on RH issues in emergencies.
The first two workshops in 2013 were organized in Bojnourd the capital city of North Khorasan province separately for male and female youth volunteers. These workshops were facilitated by experts of the YO who had been trained as facilitators earlier in 2013. The objective of training the YO experts as facilitator through UNFAP support was to not only enhances the capacity of YO itself but also guarantee the sustainability of the project.
UNFPA representative, Dr. Hulki Uz and Head of Specialized International Organization office of Ministry of Foreign Affair, Mr. Seadat attended in opening ceremony of the training workshops in Bojnord. UNFPA representative in his opening speech indicated that new country program in Iran started in 2012 with an emphasis on youth, female headed household, elderly and urbanization and has been developed in coordination and supervision of the government. He also emphasized the importance of the youth and their role in the future development of the country.
Along with conducting these workshops in Bojnourd, an earthquake maneuver had been organized in Chaharborj village in which both UNFPA representative and Mr. Seadat from MFA participated. This event was quite impressive due to the fact that YO had been able to mobilize great number of blind volunteers to participate in this maneuver. The objective was to raise the awareness of community members, particularly blind people about disasters while demonstrating the capacity of youth volunteers in providing support to response in humanitarian situations.
