Star for Life Jerusalem is a foundation whose vision is to promote sustainable development for the people of East Jerusalem through various initiatives. Our mission is to develop, finance, and implement programmes targeting education, employment, IT skills development, and IT entrepreneurship. 

We started our activities in January 2022, when Dr. Reda Mansour, a seasoned and skilled diplomat, became Star for Life Jerusalem’s first employee. We continued to recruit staff throughout the year, and at the end of September Christin and Dan Olofsson inaugurated our new office, which is staffed by 17 energetic employees, mostly women from East Jerusalem. 

We have also launched three different programmes. The first was launched in September at Al-Tur and Ibn Khaldun schools. They are two of four pilot schools where we are testing out an adapted programme for social and emotional learning developed by Motivationslyftet and Star for Life in Sweden. 

Our second programme, “The Job Hub”, helps young adults find jobs. It has seen a good start and 100 people have already found employment thanks to the programme. The goal is to help 3,000 people find jobs over the next five years. The Job Hub will also support SMEs in their expansion and facilitate their hiring of more young people.

The third programme is an IT training project that provides training courses for young people with an academic background in IT. The aim is to improve their chances of finding skilled jobs in this growing sector and also, to strengthen the Tech ecosystem in East Jerusalem. To succeed in Jerusalem, we will take a long-term approach – just as we always do when undertaking a new commitment. And we hope that through our initiatives and programmes, we can help sow the seeds of hope for a better, safer, and more stable future.