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UNESCO, EU Launch Youth Employment through Heritage, Culture Project in Yemen

UNESCO workers in Sanaa. (UNESCO)
UNESCO workers in Sanaa. (UNESCO)
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UNESCO, EU Launch Youth Employment through Heritage, Culture Project in Yemen

UNESCO workers in Sanaa. (UNESCO)
UNESCO workers in Sanaa. (UNESCO)

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the European Union (EU) signed a new €20 million agreement to further support the cultural sector in Yemen.

The Youth Employment through Heritage and Culture in Yemen project will create employment opportunities for 8,000 young women and men and safeguard the country’s unique cultural heritage.

It will start in June 2022 for four years and will be implemented in different governorates across Yemen.

Head of the EU delegation to Yemen Gabriel Munuera Vinals said culture is a common good and a symbolic force for cohesion, stability, dialogue, and peace.

“It belongs to the past and serves the future. Cultural heritage is also an opportunity to enhance sustainable development by providing jobs and supporting economic livelihoods.”

Vinals reiterated that the EU firmly believes that culture can contribute to the economic development of a country like Yemen and promote peace, reconciliation, and development.

The EU delegation explained that the project would focus on employment opportunities for young people, who will increase their families’ resilience by protecting and preserving essential assets of selected Yemeni cities.

The project will also support small and micro-enterprises and cultural civil society organizations to use culture and heritage as a unifying factor and viable economic growth.

Communities will design cultural programs, enhancing peace-building and social cohesion. The project will be implemented in collaboration with local institutions.

UNESCO’s representative to the Arab Gulf States and Yemen, Anna Paolini, said the partnership between UNESCO and the EU “has taken stock of innovative modalities to harness the role of culture in sustainable development focusing on the human dimension and ensuring that Yemenis can safeguard their culture and live in dignity.”

The culture sector in Yemen has been dramatically affected by the prolonged conflict resulting in higher unemployment rates, especially for youth, and severe scarcity in cultural programming.

Historic settlements and archaeological sites have suffered collateral damage from the crisis.

The situation is exacerbated by the long-term lack of maintenance, weak governance of heritage properties, and technical and financial resources.

In 2018, UNESCO and the EU launched a four-year project, Cash for Work: Improving livelihood opportunities of urban youth in Yemen ($12 Million), to respond to urgent human needs and threats to urban heritage environments in the World Heritage Sites of Sanaa, Shibam, and Zabid, in addition to historical buildings in the city of Aden.

The Cash- or Work project has employed more than 3,380 young women and men, rehabilitated more than 166 historical buildings, surveyed 18,000 buildings, and supported 485 artists and cultural operators through 13 cultural organizations.

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Arab World

Shiny and Deadly, Unexploded Munitions a Threat to Gaza Children

Many casualties are children desperate for something to do or searching through the rubble. Eyad BABA / AFP/File
Many casualties are children desperate for something to do or searching through the rubble. Eyad BABA / AFP/File
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Shiny and Deadly, Unexploded Munitions a Threat to Gaza Children

Many casualties are children desperate for something to do or searching through the rubble. Eyad BABA / AFP/File
Many casualties are children desperate for something to do or searching through the rubble. Eyad BABA / AFP/File

War has left Gaza littered with unexploded bombs that will take years to clear, with children drawn to metal casings maimed or even killed when they try to pick them up, a demining expert said.

Nicholas Orr, a former UK military deminer, told AFP after a mission to the war-battered Palestinian territory that "we're losing two people a day to UXO (unexploded ordnance) at the moment."

According to Orr, most of the casualties are children out of school desperate for something to do, searching through the rubble of bombed-out buildings sometimes for lack of better playthings.

"They're bored, they're running around, they find something curious, they play with it, and that's the end," he said.

Among the victims was 15-year-old Ahmed Azzam, who lost his leg to an explosive left in the rubble as he returned to his home in the southern city of Rafah after months of displacement.

"We were inspecting the remains of our home and there was a suspicious object in the rubble," Azzam told AFP.

"I didn't know it was explosive, but suddenly it detonated," he said, causing "severe wounds to both my legs, which led to the amputation of one of them."

He was one of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians returning home during a truce that brought short-lived calm to Gaza after more than 15 months of war, before Israel resumed its bombardment and military operations last month.

For Azzam and other children, the return was marred by the dangers of leftover explosives.

'Attractive to kids'

Demining expert Orr, who was in Gaza for charity Handicap International, said that while no one is safe from the threat posed by unexploded munitions, children are especially vulnerable.

Some ordnance is like "gold to look at, so they're quite attractive to kids", he said.

"You pick that up and that detonates. That's you and your family gone, and the rest of your building."

Another common scenario involved people back from displacement, said Orr, giving an example of "a father of a family who's moved back to his home to reclaim his life, and finds that there's UXO in his garden".

"So he tries to help himself and help his family by moving the UXO, and there's an accident."

With fighting ongoing and humanitarian access limited, little data is available, but in January the UN Mine Action Service said that "between five and 10 percent" of weapons fired into Gaza failed to detonate.

It could take 14 years to make the coastal territory safe from unexploded bombs, the UN agency said.

Alexandra Saieh, head of advocacy for Save The Children, said unexploded ordnance is a common sight in the Gaza Strip, where her charity operates.

"When our teams go on field they see UXOs all the time. Gaza is littered with them," she said.

'Numbers game'

For children who lose limbs from blasts, "the situation is catastrophic", said Saieh, because "child amputees require specialized long-term care... that's just not available in Gaza".

In early March, just before the ceasefire collapsed, Israel blocked all aid from entering Gaza. That included prosthetics that could have helped avoid long-term mobility loss, Saieh said.

Unexploded ordnance comes in various forms, Orr said. In Gaza's north, where ground battles raged for months, there are things like "mortars, grenades, and a lot of bullets".

In Rafah, where air strikes were more intense than ground combat, "it's artillery projectiles, it's airdrop projectiles", which can often weigh dozens of kilograms, he added.

Orr said he was unable to obtain permission to conduct bomb disposal in Gaza, as Israeli aerial surveillance could have mistaken him for a militant attempting to repurpose unexploded ordnance into weapons.

He also said that while awareness-raising could help Gazans manage the threat, the message doesn't always travel fast enough.

"People see each other moving it and think, 'Oh, they've done it, I can get away with it,'" Orr said, warning that it was difficult for a layperson to know which bombs might still explode, insisting it was not worth the risk.

"You're just playing against the odds, it's a numbers game."