An-Najah Staff

The current study aims at evaluating the role of the civil youth organizations in building the personality and its effect on the political development in the West Bank during the period 1995-2004. It studies of the various programs, projects and activities of these organizations, with emphasis on educational, developmental and awareness side of youth capabilities. The study evaluates the effect of such organizations in building youth personalities and its reflections on the political development in the West Bank in specific areas. The most important of these: political participation, citizenship and national loyalty and volunteering and national awareness. The theoretical part of the study tackles with the concept of personality, building of youth capabilities and political development including political participation and citizenship and national loyalty. The study also reviews the history of youth organization development and the effect of political changes the impact of social and economic factors, particularly three elated to the Palestinian national liberation movement. The practical side of the study depends on a specially designed questionnaire including a set of questions aimed at measuring and identification of the role of these organizations in building up personalities. The questionnaire is aimed at a selected sample of these organizations using a criteria that reflects diversity among these organizations with regard to their aims and basic programs with emphasis on the awareness and educational parts of their field of activities. The questionnaire includes two main parts: the first part expires the evaluations of those working for youth organizations, while the other explores the evaluations of the beneficiaries from such programs and projects. The findings of the study indicate that such organizations have achieved significant progress in the development of youth's personalities. The study recommends that there is need for new legislation that protect and support the youth rights; for more emphasize democracy and transparency within youth organizations; training programs for the staff working in these organizations and collaboration among these of organizations; and enhancement of unification efforts which will make these organizations more effective.