Local Youths Learn to Instill Change in Their Community and to Participate in the Making of Their Region’s History

LOST concluded the first month of the execution stage of its “Advocacy Civic Initiatives in Baalbeck-Hermel” project, with training sessions on the theme of “Citizenship and Civic Participation” to youths at its four locations in Baalbeck, Beit Shema, Ein and Hermel.
The initiative commenced in September of this year when LOST conducted preliminary preparations for the project selecting and training its personnel, developing and executing a marketing campaign and designing a research plan related to the issue of public access to government data. In October LOST continued its preparation for the project and in this regard recruited 80 youths from various communities in the Baalbeck-Hermel Region to participate in the initiatives and completed a training guide to be used by trainers in their work. In addition, training of trainers sessions continued and a project launch ceremony was held to announce the project to the local communities of the region.
In November, the first training session of youths was held and like subsequent sessions it focused on the topic of citizenship and civic participation. Upcoming sessions will focus on various topics within the Civics domain including sessions on Good Governance and Civic Advocacy. Also, community service activities where participants gain a first-hand look at advocacy campaign execution in communities other than their own will be organized via field trips to different provinces around Lebanon.
The “Advocacy Civic Initiatives in Baalbeck-Hermel” is a LOST project aimed at developing the capacity of youth to advocate causes they care about in their local and national legislatures so as to fully reflect their will in the making of their future. Funded by the Office of Transition Initiatives (OTI) of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the project is scheduled to end in July of 2012.