AYWA (Aspire Youth with Action)

AYWA Fellow
Root Program

Rakan Darwish

AYWA (Aspire Youth with Action)

2026 Fellow - RamallahField: Education,Youth Employment,entrepreneurship

Rakan Darwish & Ramzi Beidas

AYWA creates opportunities for Palestinian students to turn their ideas into responses to the challenges they see around them. Through hands-on innovation and entrepreneurship programmes, it brings participants together with mentors, schools, businesses, and community organisations to work on real problems.

Young people enter these programmes with knowledge of their own communities. AYWA gives them room to investigate a challenge, test an idea, learn from others, and decide what to do next. Local partners help shape the programmes, while participants’ feedback informs how they improve. AYWA’s ambition is to make this experience available across Palestine, giving more young people the connections and practical support to act on their ideas and shape their futures.

Fellow AYWA
Founder Info

Rakan Darwish

Founder

Rakan grew up in Jerusalem and began volunteering as a summer camp leader at 13—his first experience of helping young people take on responsibility and make a difference. He studied biochemistry at Queen Mary University of London before moving into venture building at Plug and Play Ventures in the UAE, where he worked with startups, founders, and mentors. He brought that experience to AYWA to help create opportunities for Palestinian youth to develop their own solutions.

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