Current Projects

Building the Future programmes for young professionals from Iraq

Follow-up programmes are currently being worked on, following the visit to Britain and Northern Ireland of six young professionals from Iraq in September 2008. This was a pilot scheme of a BAX programme planned in partnership with the Iraqi Kubba Foundation. Building the Future has a focus on leadership and community-building training.

The main purpose of the visit was to provide opportunities for the Iraqi delegates and their hosts to learn from each other’s experiences, challenges and heritages, and to develop strategies and skills to support the work of reconstruction in Iraq now and in the years ahead.

Download the report of the 2008 Building the Future visit

Supporting Gazan young professionals prevented from training in Europe

For the past three summers BAX has sponsored a group of young professional Palestinians to attend the 'Tools for Change' conference at the International conference centre of Initiatives of Change (IofC) at Caux, Switzerland. Each year they have been unable to leave their country to take up this invitation because of the Israeli blockade on the borders of Gaza.  BAX is working on practical ways to provide other means of support for this group, and the invitation remains open. 

Ongoing projects

A number of other initiatives are carried out from time to time to build the BAX network and support previous BAX participants in their bridge-building work.

For instance, we are currently exploring ways of communicating with friends in areas difficult to access (such as Gaza) via video conferencing or social media.

Sometimes BAX supporters have given their time to promote particular projects. One BAX committee member devoted a day a week for nine months to support BAX work, and her work included the production of the brochure An Alternative Vision: 30 Years of British-Arab Exchanges.

Another former BAX delegate, also volunteering for one day a week, organised a monthly working group, out of which grew the idea of British-Arab StudentLink events to reach out to Arab students in Britain and engage them in dialogue. These consisted of a series of events on themes such as Coming To Terms With History, Experiences of Identity.  On one occasion the Palestinian General Delegate to the UK was invited to speak at the School of Oriental and African Studies on the subject of Bridging the Gap Between East and West: what role can students play?