The Wire

Last night the second Oxfam International Youth Parliament wound up with a gala function and dinner. For he past week, the three hundred young delegates from around the world have been conferencing and workshopping their ideas on how to make a difference in their local communities. One of the delegates is Palestinian, Samy Karmout. Only sixteen years old, he’s the youngest delegate at the parliament, and is originally from Gaza. With the borders of Gaza currently closed, Samy is only able to attend the parliament because he has been studying in the United States for the past year on a State Department Scholarship. Samy is concerned with the poverty of the people in his country where there is up to 70 per cent unemployment, and he plans to address this on a small, local scale. Samy’s family owns five dunums of land (which is just over an acre). He wants to use the land to cultivate pepper, and bottle it for export to the USA and Europe. Samy also works for an organisation called the Palestine Children’s Welfare Fund, which seeks sponsorship for children living in refugee camps. He says “All the children in Palestine, when they drink milk, they drink politics.”

Palestinian Children’s Welfare Fund
Oxfam International Youth Parliament