The Ramallah Federation has been urging young adults to become active and run for offices. What suggestions do you have to achieve this goal?
Have you ever been to a Ramallah event or convention and feel like a fish out of water? It is often daunting to be in a room full of people of all ages and cities, therefore you tend to search for a glimpse of a familiar face. Thankfully our community is open, welcoming, and accepting of others. I personally become at ease by knowing that being from the Ramallah community we all have a common point. The Ramallah convention for instance, there are many opportunities to get closer to the people you already know and make new friends, and it is always nice to be enthusiastically invited to a forum, a comedian, or a young adults boat ride. Over the past two conventions that I attended, the people who encouraged me to personally be more open and more open to new experiences was slightly older than myself. Not an Umo or an Auntie.
These are the future leaders passionate about their cause, their culture, and their customs. These are the people who are passionate about encouraging me to embrace and participate with this big Ramallah family. What is the importance of encouraging the young adults to get involved with the Ramallah Federation? The importance is that we are the future. We are the next set of Umo’s and Auntie’s trying to encourage our youth.
America is known as the melting pot. Each ethnicity has worked hard to assimilate and to preserve their culture. It is well documented that churches are struggling with attendance. The Amish struggle to keep their youth on board. As does the Ramallah federation and Ramallah families.
So what does the federation need to do? I’ve heard that debate at many family dinners. I’ve heard they are top heavy and do not allow change. I’ve heard there is too much internal politics. But I’ve also heard they now have web-casts, so people can dial in to participate during meetings. The federation has a professional business group geared towards networking. The federation was slow to get on board with technology. I think the youth is looking for more than the social aspect of the federation or the politics. We rely on emails, texts, facebook, professional groups and web-casts. We are looking for the federation to continue to be proactive in getting the youth involved, inspire us to take pride in our culture, and seek positions within the community.
The beauty of a big community, of this Ramallah family, is that we have the means to network and by taking advantage of these resources we will better our community and each other on a personal level. By maintaining the upward efforts of networking we help each other, on an overall front, expanding from opportunities to a social aspect. The new steps the federation has been taking has been essential. They need to continue to broaden the network, continue notifying each other about new jobs, as they occasionally do in my area, to keep each other motivated, prospering, and achieving.
The federation needs to continue to stay ahead of the technology game and allow the youth to restructure segments of the federation, such as the modes of communication. The federation needs to encourage leaders who lead with grace, not just those because they belong to “that” family. With such a large community we are privileged to have supported a lot of successful people. We need to look for the educated, the strong businessperson, the entrepreneur, and the booster parent. We need to encourage well-written articles that teach the community. Such articles are often showcased in the “On the Move” portion of the magazine, which I personally enjoy reading. It is great to know we are in fact “On the Move”. The youth needs to appreciate the insight and wisdom that has allowed the community as a whole to achieve so much today.
By Allison Ajluni (21), Michigan
Daughter of Maher and Judy (Misleh) Ajluni