DUBAI – We must accept the juveniles in society and give them another chance, so they will be able to use it to make a better life for themselves and not to follow the old, corrupted road. This process cannot proceed without the hard work of both juveniles and society.
Persons under the age of 18 constitute about 2 percent of the overall prison population in the United Arab Emirates, according to the World Prison Brief. The most common juvenile felonies in Abu Dhabi are theft, violent fights, and drugs, according to an article published in the International Journal of Educational Development in 2020. In our society, juveniles seem to be often ignored and judged, and we want the society to understand that they are troubled teenagers that are brought up in challenging and messed up situations that led them to this. His Highness Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed Al Maktoum is already working on a juvenile center with specialists to help rehabilitate those youngsters.
Four Zayed University students in our 20s, we decided to create a campaign to introduce the juvenile system to society as a chance to make them a part of our lives.
Our campaign’s name is “Second Chance,” and its slogan is “Accept, Give, and Use in the Juvenile System.” We should accept that everyone makes mistakes, and no one is perfect, therefore we should give and show love and support to juveniles to have a second chance and a better future. We should motivate them to use the help needed in order to improve themselves.
We organized the campaign to be held at Zayed University in Dubai on Nov. 25. We set up a station so that students, teachers and guests could view what we have been working on. We chose the date of the university’s National Day celebrations to have a wider audience when we reveal our campaign.
We developed the campaign in ISC451 Integrated Strategic Communication Campaign course. At the start of the semester in August 2021, Dr. Badran Badran asked the students to think about a topic that will be executed at the end of the semester. At first, it was very difficult as many topics came to our mind. Days passed, and the group member Reem Mohammad came up with the topic of the second chance.
The group members became so excited as the topic is unknown and is very important for society. As they say, one hand cannot clap, therefore, we all started by searching more about the campaign and brainstorming as well as sending out surveys to see people’s thoughts about juveniles.
It was challenging to work as a group as every person had a different opinion and thoughts. We had our ups and downs working as a group. At first, it was burdensome for us, but nothing stopped us from trying.
To catch the attention of our target audience, we prepared questions, games, giveaways, and prizes, as well as posters and balloons. On our social media platforms, we also let our followers know ahead of time that we will be available on that day, with hours specified in the Instagram story.
We received great motivational feedback from the audience, as they were impressed with the idea and suggested executing the campaign in different locations with different range of ages. Some people thought more could be done for the juveniles. Also, they recommended conducting the campaign in different languages to suit the majority of people.
It was a long journey for all four of us, but we never gave up. Winners never quit, and quitters never win. Our advice to all students is to let failure motivate you to work harder instead of just giving up. Losing hope was the last thing that any of us could feel as we were all hard workers who faced many issues but never gave up. Keep on working until you reach the place that makes you feel proud of yourself.
About the authors
Reem Mohammed, Maryam Al Sharif, Maha Al Qurashi, and Asma Al Marri are studying Integrated Strategic Communication in the College of Communication and Media Sciences at Zayed University in Dubai. They have been recipients of the Dean’s List. Al Qurashi is a member of the Student Council on the Dubai campus.
The editor of this story was Yulia Medvedeva.
