Talk:The Munathara Initiative

Request edit on 3 August 2020
Good Afternoon,

Allow me to begin by stating that I work for the Munathara Initiative. The first sentence of the Wikipedia entry contains erroneous, misleading, and incomplete information, and for the sake of accuracy for general readership, I'd like to suggest a few changes:

1. Firstly, The Munathara Initiative is based in Tunis and Washington, D.C. only. The reference attached to this first sentence doesn't mention Amman at all, in fact. Can you please delete reference to Amman?

2. Please replace reference to "anyone can take part" to "catered to youth, women, and marginalized communities." While it is true that "anyone can take part" in the programs, the point of the organization is to provide a space specifically for youth, women, and marginalized communities to contribute to the Arabic speaking public sphere. And, in line with this, the vast majority of our participants must, by donor and granting contracts, be youth, women, and come from marginalized communities. These are, in other words, the target populations that we serve--not the general public.

You can find references to this on our 'About us' page, but also in external secondary sources: - https://www.munathara.com/en/about-us - https://www.tbd.community/en/a/platform-transforming-democratic-participation-middle-east - https://www.dailysabah.com/life/2016/10/29/munathara-initiative-brings-arab-speaking-world-together-in-istanbul-third-time-for-debates - https://www.chathamhouse.org/sites/default/files/publications/research/2016-05-13-young-arab-voices-spencer-aldouri.pdf

3. Please delete reference to 'Pan-Arab.' There is reference to the Munathara Initiative being 'Pan-Arab,' which it is not at all. The Munathara Initiative aims to include the voices of marginalized communities in the public sphere of the Arabic speaking world (language, by definition, informs the public sphere, hence the confusion over Arabic language and Arab people). The Munathara Initiative does not seek the unification of Arabs, and neither is it Arab nationalist (these definitions are from Wikipedia's own article on 'Pan-Arabism.'

4. Please consider adding reference to the Tunisian 2019 presidential and parliamentary electoral debates. The Munathara Initiative is best known for its work in organizing the first ever free and fair presidential parliamentary and presidential debates in the Arabic world, which happened in Tunisia in 2019. There is mention of this in a wikipedia article (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Tunisian_presidential_election#:~:text=Presidential%20elections%20were%20held%20in,presidency%20since%20the%202011%20revolution.)

For secondary sources on the fact that the Munathara Initiative put on the first every free and fair presidential and parliamentary elections in the Arab world, please see the Christian Science Monitor article here: https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2019/0911/Tired-of-TV-debates-In-Arab-world-they-re-historic-and-inspiring

Thank you so much for your time and for considering these suggestions,

Mgordner (talk) 11:44, 21 August 2020 (UTC)
 * ✅ I have make the changes for 1-3 but for 4, please clearly write out what you intended to insert into the page for other editors to update easily. --Justanothersgwikieditor (talk) 07:00, 14 October 2020 (UTC)