The joint service council of South East Nablus represents four villages: Beita, Osarin, Odala and Za’atara. Through the joint service council (JSC) these villages strive to be able to give better services to their citizens. One of the major challenges in the region is the high youth unemployment, that exceeds 40%. In order to help their youth to find a first job opportunity, the JSC has organised a job fair.

In total more than 120 students and 30 different companies have participated in the first job fair organised by the Joint Service Council of South East Nablus. We have collected some impressions of participants of the job fair.

Rawan, 23 years old, is a graduate from Al Najah University in Nablus where she studied economic development. Currently she is looking for her first job. She attended the training on how to apply for a job, organised by the Joint Service Council of South East Nablus, in cooperation with the Local Economic Development project of the Belgian Development Agency (BTC), the Ministry of Labor (MoL) and An Najah University (ANU). During that training, she learnt how to conduct a job interview, and had tips and tricks on how best to develop her CV.

One of the companies present at the job fair is Fatin. This non-profit organisation began as a project of Save the Children, but has since established itself as an autonomous organisation with more than 40 branches spread out in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. It mainly focuses on micro-projects for women and special start-up programs for students. In case young people have a good start-up idea, they can support them with a start-up fund and some expertise. Fatin is currently looking for two positions, one as an administrative assistant and one accountant for its projects, based in Huwara. They hope to find suitable graduates during this job fair.  

Wasef Moa’alla, the mayor of the Joint Service Council was also present during the job fair, and was very happy with the outcome. He stressed the importance of having a good relationship between the Joint Service Council and the private sector. They need to work together more closely in the future to make sure that the citizens of the cluster will have more job opportunities.

“This day is a good opportunity to improve the relationship between the Joint Service Council of South East Nablus and the private sector. “

Pioneer is a company specialised in making elevators and escalators. It was founded as a start-up four months ago, and is now working together with a sister company. They are looking for 3 people to strengthen their team: 2 engineers and one manager. They enrolled in the job fair thanks to the Facebook post of the Joint Service Council, inviting private companies of the region to join in the job fair.