Bringing youth organizations together across borders to build trust and lasting partnerships
Turning the research’s findings into practical, co-created projects
Expanding WeAreMENA’s reach into new communities and regions
WeAreMENA Regional Roundtables turn research into action. They bring youth organizations, educators, civic leaders, policymakers, donors, and regional partners into focused working sessions designed to build trust, identify shared challenges, and leave the room with concrete next steps.
The roundtables are one of the ways WeAreMENA turns the findings of Architects of the New Middle East and North Africa into living regional infrastructure. The research showed that the region does not lack motivated actors. What is missing is connectivity, stable frameworks, and spaces where organizations can move from meeting one another to building something together.
Each roundtable is built around a shared, practical challenge. The goal is not dialogue for its own sake, but co-creation: a framework, partnership, pilot, resource, or set of commitments that participants can carry forward.
“You will achieve many wins that you, or others, may perceive as small. But the accumulation of those small wins will lead to very big change – and this is the time for it.”
”Youth organisations may not be the actors signing regional agreements, but they can build the human infrastructure of regionalism.”
“Courage is Rehumanising the other – seeing people as human beings rather than as a country, an ideology or an enemy.”
A typical roundtable is a focused half-day working session for a small group of carefully selected participants. It begins with a short framing of the research and the shared challenge, moves into structured working groups, and closes with commitments, owners, and a clear follow-up path. The format is intimate enough for every organization to have real airtime, and structured enough to produce a written outcome within a week.
Roundtables can be hosted with local partners, diplomatic missions, academic institutions, community organizations, foundations, or youth networks. WeAreMENA brings the research framework, facilitation, regional network, and follow-up structure; partners bring local legitimacy, participants, context, and the conditions for sustained cooperation.
The Regional Roundtables are one of the concrete next steps to come out of our research report,
Architects of the New Middle East and North Africa.
Download the full report to see the rest.
