Beirut, October 31, 2018 – Under the patronage of His Excellency the Minister of Education and Higher Education Mr. Marwan Hamadeh, and with the support of UNICEF and the funding of the Italian Cooperation, Mada Association and EMPOWER NGO launched their project “Capacity Building and Mentorship for Youth in Akkar, North Lebanon, and Beirut-Mount Lebanon” at the Ministry of Education and Higher Education in the presence of the Director General of Technical and Vocational Education Mrs. Salam Younes, representing the minister of Education and Higher Education, Director General of Education and Higher Education Fady Yarak, UNICEF Deputy Representative Violet Speak-Warnery, MADA Coordinator Delphine Compain, and President of EMPOWER NGO Karine Jabaji.
Mrs. Salam Younes acknowledged the efforts of the two NGOs and to provide “a much-needed training to vulnerable youth in regions such as Akkar and North Lebanon”. She added “this project has the potential to positively impact the lives of youth in these regions”. She also hoped to see these trainings rolled out to other vulnerable Lebanese regions.
In her turn, UNICEF Deputy Representative Violet Speak-Warnery said that the launch of this pilot project focuses on training young people on technical skills based on the job needs of the regions they live in. She highlighted that “this training will be coupled with job fairs on a national level that allows students to think more about their professions and their future.” She explained that UNICEF invested in studies on a national scale to assess the situation of young people. And these studies, from one side, have highlighted the challenges faced by young people in Lebanon and, from another side, identified gaps in strategies at the level of public and private systems that must provide young people with the appropriate knowledge, skills and lifelong learning opportunities, and hence the need for such projects.
Karine Jabaji, president of EMPOWER welcomed the attendees and in her speech thanked both UNICEF and the Italian Cooperation for respectively their support and their funding of the project.
“Unemployment rate among youth is often estimated to 25% in Akkar and North Lebanon. Dropout youth or without diploma are even more concerned with strong social and economic impact in the regions in terms of poverty and hope of a better future for a whole generation of youth. However, some analysis of the labor market mechanisms showed that a demand exists for technical skills and there is a non-negligible number of companies seeking for filling vacancies” said Delphine Compain, MADA association coordinator.
This project aims to support youth in Akkar, North Lebanon, and Beirut-Mount Lebanon by training them on technical skills to improve their employability and empower them to access better employment opportunities. The technical skills focus on vocational training related to agriculture trade, life skills and mentorship. The project will also provide six job fairs to assist youth in identifying job opportunities and to link them to the job market.
A training on digital skills is also integrated into the project with a special focus on Social Media Campaigning and Marketing. Youth tend to use social media for personal use and the project provides them with the technical skills to take their personal use and invest it in a professional capacity within their own communities.
For this purpose, the project will offer youth the opportunity to identify community issues and launch inspirational social media campaigns targeting young people to motivate them to engage with their community, become problem solvers, and to invest in their potential for a better future.