LOST Celebrates the Successful Completion of Summer 2011 Youth Academy, Graduates a New Class of TOEFL Students

A theatrical play, TOEFL graduation ceremony and cocktail party marked LOST’s program for its annual Summer Youth Academy this past Saturday, the 15th of October 2011, in the Ras-el-Ain district in the city of Baalbeck.

Attended by students and their parents, LOST and community members, the “Youth Lead, We Follow” project final ceremony event  denotes the completion of a five month-long process which included four months of training and workshops on the topics of Conflict Resolution, Civic Participation, Citizenship and Peace and Tolerance and a one month of engagement in community projects. Saturday’s program celebrated the conclusion of the summer 2011 project. 

Omar Bay’yan, a member of LOST faculty, commenced the program with a speech welcoming the event participants, emphasizing the importance of the project and discussing the accomplishments of the participants throughout the past five months. “We launched the youth academy project based on the solemn truth that youth in our region are facing enormous challenges in belonging to, proving their presence in and enhancing their participation and presence in decisions which impact their lives,” Bay’yan noted. “Also, they lack the education in cooperation, communication and dialogue which has been compromised by the sectarian extremism, the familial and the religious thereof.” 

At the end of Bay’yan’s address and as part of the project, a group of students participating in the academy performed a theatrical play which delivered the key learning objectives of the project in an easy-to-grasp manner. Humorous yet meaningful, the play emphasized the unequivocally important role that youth plays in civil society and especially on its ability to lead change and embody it in their daily lives.
After the play, Bay’yan commenced LOST’s TOEFL graduation ceremony where he congratulated the TOEFL course participants for their successful completion of the course  and awarded them diplomas in recognition of their achievement.
The Youth Lead, We Follow project is fully funded by Action Aid Denmark, a nonprofit organization which focuses on various areas of development including education, governance and emergencies and conflict and whose scope of operation spans numerous countries across the globe including Lebanon and many other nations in the Middle East region.

The project is a part of Action Aid’s Academy of Active Citizen, a summer program set up for the purpose of civic education and engagement via workshops and training on a variety of issues including tolerance and conflict.
“We support these kinds of projects because we believe in youth and their ability to do social change needed. We believe they are the changing agents,” said Hadia Ghadban, a project coordinator for Action Aid in Lebanon. “The result, to a big extent, has been good. We touched the impact of performing arts through their performance today and the show they presented.”

Local Advocacy Initiatives in Baalbeck- Hermel

  “Advocacy Initiatives in Baalbeck-Hermel” is the title of the project funded by OTI/USAID and implemented by LOST. This project kicked off in September 2011 and will extend over 10 months.
The major objective of this project is to empower 100 youth from Baalbeck-Hermel with civic education and advocacy tools in addition to social media tools to make them capable of mobilizing their local communities and participating in local advocacy initiatives.
Two main issues-problems are tackled in this project. The first one is conceptual and is related to youth misunderstanding of their role in society. And the second one is more practical and it deals with the poor involvement of youth in real community affairs especially in local municipality services.

The Lebanese Organization for Studies and Training through this project tries to solve these issues by educating youth to become active citizens and helping them to understand their right and crucial role in making things change for the better in their society. Moreover, this project empowers youth with social media tools that can make their opinions more heard. These new acquired skills and techniques will be utilized as part of advocacy initiatives to push youth to handle the problems that they are facing.

The Academy of Youth: A new project supported by OTI/ USAID

 After implementing more than five projects of youth activism, The Lebanese Organization for Studies and Training considers working with youth as a strategic issue to manage any process of social and political change. So that, LOST is going ahead in a new project supported by USAID which is entitled: “The Academy of Youth”. This project aims at training and engaging more than 10 youth clubs from different academic and vocational institutions in public issues. This will be done by training youth on citizenship, conflict resolution, good governance, municipal governance in addition to IT and English sessions. These trainings will be followed by various activities that will be implemented to crystallize the different concepts discussed in training.
Through this project, youth will gain new skills and they will have the chance to use these newly gained skills to participate in the development of their communities.

Launching small community projects by youth in Baalbeck-Hermel

The Academy of Youth- Summer 2011 which is the first joint project between LOST and Action-Aid Denmark launched 4 developmental projects in Baalbeck in the presence of Dr. Ramy Lakkis, the founder of LOST, Mrs. Hadia Ghadban, the representative of Action-Aid Denmark in Lebanon and several social and academic figures in addition to the participants of the Academy. After the Lebanese Anthem, Mr. Hussein Shouman from LOST welcomed the audience and explained the program of the Academy and its objectives. Mr. Shouman’s welcoming note was followed by a speech delivered by the founder of LOST Dr. Ramy Lakkis who stressed on the role of the Academy in promoting local development. “The final stage of the Academy’s program includes the engagement of youth in 4 community projects in order to use their newly gained skills to push for positive change in their communities”. He added. Four youth members of the Academy presented the 4 community projects that will be executed in Baalbeck, Hermel, Ein and Ksarnaba. Hermel and Beit Shama projects are based on protecting the monuments of Brisa and Ksarnaba. These projects include sending letters to the Ministry of Tourism in order to protect the archeological sites in these regions. The project that will be executed in Ein is based on protecting the archeological old houses in this region by communicating with the owners and presenting short films that show the archeological importance of these houses. The Academy’s members in Baalbeck presented their project which is based on the rehabilitation of Al Makased Park in Baalbeck through meetings with the neighborhoods and the municipality of Baalbeck and distributing brochures to raise public awareness to protect public places.

More than vocational education! Job opportunities

The Lebanese Organization of Studies and Training inaugurated the Electronics and Commercial Arts Center “ECC” in an opening ceremony in Baalbeck in the presence of a large audience of political, academic and social figures.
“More than vocational education! Job opportunities” said Dr. Ramy Lakkis, the founder of LOST. This is the essential feature that distinguishes “ECC” from other vocational institutions. “ECC” provides career guidance and job opportunities to its students in collaboration with Forsa, a local NGO.

“ECC” provides the following technical degrees “BP-BT-TS”, and it offers a wide range of majors such as IT management, nursing, Business administration, management information system, Construction and public works.
Furthermore, “ECC” offers a variety of courses and certificates in Languages (English& French), hairdressing & make-up, first aids, flowers’ arrangement, engineering & architectural drawing, photography, executive secretary, head accountant, computer and general accountant.

Rejecting “Violence Against Women”

As part of the Women Political Empowerment (WPE) project that is funded by the Canada Fund, the Lebanese Organization for Studies and Training in collaboration with the Canada Fund organized a seminar entitled “Violence Against Women” delivered by the lawyer and social activist Ms. Manar Zayter at LOST-Baalbeck center on the 24th of September 2011 in the presence of more than 60 women.

Ms. Zayter identified “violence against women as any act of gender-based violence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual or mental harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or in private life.”

Ms Zayter highlighted several legal issues that perpetuate “Violence against Women” in the Lebanese Law. She considered that women's role is acknowledged only in texts; however, in practice women are confined to their biological classical functions. She added that the Lebanese laws threaten women with divorce, homelessness and polygamy. Women are also subjected to the prevention from compensation, children's custody and from inheritance. The laws also encompass different degrees of domestic violence against women. Violence in Lebanon remains without any legal protection and expose women to disgrace in case of disclosure or talk. Such laws still confirm the accessory role of women and allow various forms of moral and physical violence against them. Such unfair discrimination against women clearly appears in the law of divorce and the impacts resulting from it. The consequences of divorce, separation or dissolution of marriage comprise many aspects of injustice towards women. There isn't any measure set forth in such laws to prevent family violence.

Ms. Zayter emphasized that such violations of women’s rights are also clearly shown in the Lebanese Penal Law. She talked about what is called "Crimes of Honor" which demonstrate great discrimination against women. She affirmed that the Lebanese Penal Law still preserves the principle of killing women by family men members and that domestic violence is a major type of violence practiced against women.

“Dignity is indivisible between men and women. And rights are not privileges given to women but they are part of their dignity. So the violence against women is not acceptable under any religious, social or cultural pretext.” Ms. Manar Zayter concluded.

The seminar was followed by a long and interesting debate and finally all participants were invited to a cocktail at Baytna Restaurant in Baalbeck.

Celebrating Success in LOST’s 10th Annual Iftar

The Lebanese  Organization  of  Studies  and  Training  (LOST) organized its  10th annual Iftar in Baalbeck  on  August 15th , 2010 in the presence of H.E. Ali Abdullah, Minister of Youth and Sports to celebrate its 12th anniversary. Several religious, military and social figures attended the ceremony which counted an audience of over 450 persons. Distribution of certificates was held during the event. Fifteen certificates were issued to trainees who have attended an Educational Counseling Course, in addition to certificates distributed to 70 students who have completed successfully 100 hours of TOEFL exam preparation course.
“Educational Counseling was something far from reach and LOST made it reachable. There was no chance in our deprived region to even know that such course exists; however, LOST made it available. I was just a teacher, now I feel I can be a counselor and an educator” said Alaa a teacher from Chmostar.

Academy of Active Citizens

 The Academy of Youth is preparing youth to be more engaged in civic affairs. After a series of interactive workshops on citizenship, civic participation and conflict resolution for around three months, youth became more aware of their role and duties in society. They became more involved in community affairs. In fact, they decided to respond to the call of the Ministry of Culture to clean the inside of the ruins of Ballbeck. On Saturday the 23rd of July more than 160 youth participated in the cleaning campaign for more than four hours of hard work. The campaign by itself was a practical call to draw the attention of local authorities to do its work more than an event to clean the temples of Baalbeck. This is the right based approach that youth have learned in the Academy.
The engagement of youth in community issues was reflected  by drawing murals with different messages visualizing their calls  to draw attention to issues  they found relevant in their communities. In Hermel, youth preferred to send a clear message for people to take care of their environment, in Baalbeck, youth decided to draw different road signs signaling a special care to road safety since they believed that many citizens of their ages are victims of car accidents and damages.

Meaningful movies at LOST

The Lebanese Organization for Studies and Training organizes weekly meaningful movies for children in Arabic and English languages in its 4 branches.
This activity organized by LOST is targeting groups of less fortunate children in Baalbeck- Hermel.More than 30 kids are attending these movies every week. Such activities give kids the opportunity to learn English through enjoyable modes. These kids miss every entertaining activity in a region which lacks recreational facilities. The movies bring them more than happiness.

Conflict Resolution for teachers in Baalbeck

LOST is organizing a conflict resolution training course in Baalbeck. This new course aims at training teachers on how they can resolve the various types of conflicts that usually occur between students and teachers or between students’ parents and the teaching staff in any school.
In the first course offered this spring more than 20 teachers from different schools in Baalbeck- Hermel participated. Such course included training on the following topics: the roots of conflict, the different skills of conflict resolution such as dialogue, negotiation, mediation and adjudication.
“It was a chance provided by LOST to help us solving the problems that we face in teaching.” Was a statement repeated by all trainees.