In 2007, the Tharwa Foundation and the Center for Liberty in the Middle East (CLIME) launched the Tharwa Institute for Democratic Leadership: a training initiative targeting emerging reformers and human rights activists from the broader Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region.  Institute Overview In its first year, the Institute trained 17 participants from Lebanon, Iraq, Egypt, Morocco, Yemen and Syria.  The participants represented various ethnic backgrounds and were Muslim (Sunni and Shi’i) and Christian. They included students, lawyers, business professionals, journalists, and bloggers. The program consisted of two five day workshops in Istanbul, and a six-month online course in Arabic addressing the key concepts of authoritarian and democratic political systems, political transitions, and advocacy campaign planning.   The training program concluded with a seed project competition to fund grass-roots advocacy projects proposed by the participants to address local social or political issues. Project proposals were submitted to the Institute in November 2007, and ranged from social projects to address issues such as child labor or the cultural rights of ethnic minorities, to more political issues such as the electoral rights of expatriates, private prisons runs by tribal leaders, and state tactics to depoliticize youth. Awards were provided in the range of $1,000 to $4,000.

Conducted at the tharwainstitute.org, the course consists of weekly readings, exercises, discussion boards, and live chat sessions. The online curriculum is divided into three sequential modules, each lasting between 6-8 weeks.

I) Authoritarianism, Dictatorship, and Tyranny

II) What is Democracy?

III) Citizen Activism

Modules I and II: “Authoritarianism, Dictatorship, and Tyranny” and “What is Democracy?”  draws assigned readings and discussion material from academic publications on comparative politics, democratic transition theory, and specific challenges to political transformation in the MENA region. Also included are sources from the wider popular literature on democratization and excerpts from literature on strategic nonviolent conflict. The primary advisor for these modules was Steven Heydemann, former Director of Georgetown University’s Center for Democracy and Civil Society and currently at the United States Institute of Peace, where he is Associate Vice President of the Jennings Randolph Fellowship Program and Special Advisor to the Muslim World Initiative.

• Week 1: Assessing Your Personal Advocacy Goals – Students complete questionnaires on the social and political issues that interest them and their personal activism goals; provides an introduction to advocacy and leadership personality types

• Week 2: Researching and Analyzing Your Issue – Students assess the current social context of their chosen advocacy issue – including the positions of relevant social actors who may support, oppose, or behave neutrally toward the proposed project – and identify further research and data needed to carry out their project

• Week 3: Defining Goals and Target Objectives – Students define their broad goal statement for their project and their specific, measurable, and feasible objectives by which they will evaluate their project’s success

• Week 4: Identifying and Understanding Your Primary Targets – Students narrow the focus of their project or campaign to their primary target groups (i.e. Iraqi legislators, university administrators, Syrian journalism students) and analyze what motivates their behavior and existing stance on the chosen issue; Students also identify secondary targets who may be able to influence their primary targets

• Week 5: Developing Your Message – Students learn what makes a successful campaign or advocacy message, compose their own messages for their project / campaign’s specific targets, and learn how to refine their messaging strategies to respond to opponents

• Week 6: Planning and Running an Activist Campaign (Parts I and II) – Part I: Students identify key activities to achieve their project’s objectives and the resources needed and evaluation mechanism for each; Part II: Readings address coalition building and volunteer recruitment strategies to sustain an ongoing campaign

Two workshops at the beginning and the end of the online course serve to create personal links between the participants, establish the framework subsequent online interactions, and provide a in-person forum to consolidate the concepts explored online. A diverse group of experts on issues relating to democratic activism joined CLIME’s staff to conduct the following sessions:

• Leadership for Democratic Activism, Dr. Shafeeq Ghabra, Jusoor Arabiya – Dr. Ghabra, an advisor to CLIME, is a well-known liberal Arab activist, radio talk show host, and founder of Jusoor Arabiya, an organization dedicated to training leaders in the Arab world to meet the challenges of reform and development. In working with Dr.Ghabra, the group debated the best means for achieving their goals for reform with a special focus on the challenges to building a democratic movement. Activities focused on expressing individual and collective goals; fostering team cultures of open discussion and respect for differences opinion; and exploring social and personal barriers to change.
• Introduction to Nonviolent Action, – Experts including a former student leader of Georgia's Rose Revolution in 2003, and Mubarak Awad, a Palestinian activist and founder of Nonviolence International, led the group through discussions and exercises on nonviolent strategies and methods for civic empowerment.
• Challenges of Political Transition, Clifford Chanin of the Legacy Project:  The Founder and President of the Legacy Project, an organization dedicated to understanding the collective impact of trauma on societies, Chanin delivered a lecture and question-and-answer session on the challenges of political transitions from authoritarianism –  including the role of collective memory, and the delicate balance between the pursuit of justice and revenge.
• Internet Activism, Ammar al-Shahbander, Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR) - An adjunct fellow of CLIME, Ammar Al-Shahabandar discussed online reporting techniques and case studies.

The final workshop gave each participant the opportunity to present their project plan and to receive critique and feedback from the Institute staff and an experienced panel of advisors. Serving as guest advisors were:

• Simon Panek, former student activist during the Czech Velvet Revolution and current President of the People in Need Foundation
• Steve Heydemann, former Director of Georgetown University’s Center for Democracy and Civil Society and currently at the United States Institute of Peace, and an expert on Authoritarianism in the Arab word. He discussed his recent paper,
• Radwan Ziadeh, founder of the Damascus Center for Human Rights Studies

In addition to providing individual feedback to students on their projects, guest advisors led lectures and discussions throughout the workshop.

CLIME and Tharwa are seeking funding to replicate the program in 2007, and in the meantime, all materials and course content will be reused for other training programs such as the MENA Women's Activism Institute. Many of the participants from 2007 have become regular contributors to Tharwa’s Citizen Journalism Initiative - a regular, unfiltered source of news and analysis from Tharwa’s citizen journalists in Syria and the MENA region to regional analysts, researchers, and policymakers.