Youth Talk

As a Bahraini teenager it always excites and piques my interest when I hear that Bahrain is doing something to better its population of young people.

I doubt that I’m alone in sharing this sentiment because projects such as the Youth City 2030 are now in their sixth successful year and are more popular than ever.

Having briefly heard about the project last year, I hadn’t given it much thought because it seemed small-scale but when I heard about it this time I realised how wrong I was.

So I decided to further investigate what this project was about and interviewed some of the participants. After conversing with them for a while I learned that the programme is split into four sections which are tailored to fit all the different personalities of the Bahraini youth.

The four sections are media, science and technology, art and leadership and each of them have their own centre.

The Media Centre consists of all media-related activities such as photography, video editing, movie making, creating logos etc.

The Science and Technology Centre comprises of activities such as planting, building machines and robotics. Participants are even taught to create an application in the manner that they desire and then are encouraged to publish it.

The Art Centre includes anything ‘artsy’ you can think of, whether that is fashion designing, interior designing, FX make-up, writing on wood, music producing, mosaic art pieces and much more.

There is a MasterChef course available as well, which should be of interest to any young aspiring chefs or just young people interested in cooking.

And finally, the Leadership Course, which speaks for itself. The youth are taught to be confident and not think twice in public situations. They integrate public speaking to ensure that the young are confident when speaking to both people that they are and aren’t familiar with.

When questioned on whether this programme will benefit them, the participants agreed. During the summer there usually isn’t much to do but when this programme comes around, there are hundreds aiming to participate.

Some join with their family, their friends or even come alone but by the end of the course they have made a lot of friends and have a bigger and brighter outlook on the course they took, some even pursuing it in their further education.

Some of the most popular courses are interior designing and studio photography. The participants go through a month-long process of different courses and towards the end work on a team project which they’ve described as the most interesting part of the entire course.

The volunteers and teachers have been defined as friendly and always happy to help when the participants are in doubt. Since the programme is targeted at locals the language of instruction is Arabic, however, the volunteers understand and speak English clearly as well.

While the course is now coming to an end, it’s definitely something worth investing your time in next year!