"Zaytoon" is a non-profit, non-governmental, non-religious foundation. The initiative supports young people from Syria based on the principle of free participation and unbiased engaged learning. The initiative’s philosophy is to apply all means beneficial to help people develop and find a place where they can engage actively in building their future and to build bridges between Syrians and others, as well as between Syrian their selves who belong to different political orientations, ethics, religion sects…etc.

Zaytoon does this by helping them raising their awareness and understanding, open their minds to others, ensure the concept of citizenship, building their capacity, improving their skills, their learning abilities and by supporting their own initiatives.

To practice that Zaytoon has divided its job to departments, which are:

Zaytoon’s training center:
It is a center aims to offer different kinds of courses in various disciplines as it aims to create a community and social network between young Syrians, Egyptians and other nationalities:

Language skills (English, French, Italian), media training (montage, journalism documentation), computer sciences (Photoshop, ICDL), civic activities (first medical aid, health society). In all disciplines we will support new teaching method including an inspiring mix between practice, training which educational activities both cognitive and intuitive, socially and with creative means such as (Draw English, act Italian, cook languages…etc).

Zaytoon’s recreational and social activities:
Zaytoon is organizing various activities that all aim to support the recovering of a psychological basis of the Syrians, then to build a network between all of them and between them and others who belong to different cultures, religions, political views, as well as it aims to build the capacity of each one to be open to others (concerts, meetings, tours...etc)

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https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.357756431013002.1073741851.244566575665322

Zaytoon’s campaigns:
Zaytoon will start and support several sorts of civic campaigns that helps the people, society and environment by leading a campaign or participating and supporting other campaigns (such as: cleaning campaigns that took a place in several places in Syria, planting an olive (Zaytoon) tree in Tahreer Square in Cairo in the 10^th of November 2012.

Zaytoon and the arts:

Zaytoon conferences "the day of return":
The day of return is a weekly conference that has been going since December 2012 in a perfect way, there were many topics and issues that we could discus and talk about such as (democracy as a way to freedom - transition justice - civil society role - and many other issues)
http://syrianvoices.wordpress.com/transitional-justicecivil-society-rol/

http://syrianvoices.wordpress.com/regimesform/

http://syrianvoices.wordpress.com/roadtodemocracy/

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What is very special about the weekly conferences which Zaytoon hold that its prepared and presented to the public by young people who are accepted by everyone and this is what gave us in Zaytoon the chance to

1- Gather all or most of the Syrian political orientations.
2- Gave the young the chance to have a voice and to speak it up in front of the expert and politicians.
3- Prepared the Syrian young people somehow to speak in public.
4- Improved very much the way of communication between the attenders and this we could notice clearly with time.
5- Developed the skills of communication, researching for many young Syrians who were not used to research or to communicate with other people who have other opinions
6- These conferences could rise up the respect to other’s opinion and make them accepted by all.
7- provided many people with very useful information regarding to the title which were all pretty much the same as your office aim "election systems - democracy building - exchange and dialogue - laws and constitution understanding - human rights - civil society organizations- intellectual property - the women role in society - and many other issues regarding to the rebuilding of society, economy, health system, Infrastructure and political life.

-Some of the topics:

1-                       The truth commissions.

2-                       International movement.

3-                       The revolution and the economic.

4-                       The refugees Organization in Egypt and the refugee’s rights.

5-                       The political situation and future resolutions.

6-                       The revolution’s media.

7-                       The transition government, interior and foreign responsibilities.

8-                       The fact of rebuilding a state.

9-                       The current health situation in Syria.

10-                  The woman a partner.

11-                  About the Arab and Islam identity.

12-                  Refugee rights.

13-                  Children rights.

14-                  Women rights.

15-                  Human rights.

16-                  Society building and development.

17-                  The regime’s forums.

18-                  Intellectual priority and freedom

19-                  Democracy as a way to freedom.

20-                  The transition justice and the role of civil society.

21-                  The civil state in Islam.

22-                  Armed movement and its effect on the democratic movement.

23-                  The concept of citizenship.

24-                  The concept of the identity.

25-                  The role of the civil society in the society.

26-                  The concept of the civil society.

27-                  The concept of transition justice.