Lebanon’s First Woman, Mrs. Nehmat Aoun, has formally launched a nationwide initiative titled “The College of Citizenship”, step one in her bigger “Technology of Residents” program – a historic effort to rebuild civic belief and domesticate accountable citizenship amongst Lebanon’s youth.
The initiative goals to strengthen the connection between residents and the State, encouraging civic engagement and shared accountability by way of Lebanon’s colleges.
“We’re not merely launching a challenge – we’re making an enchantment: an enchantment for reconciliation between residents and the State, to interrupt down the boundaries that divide Lebanese folks, and for civic engagement,” the First Woman mentioned in her opening deal with.
A New Imaginative and prescient for Lebanon’s Youth
The “College of Citizenship” units out to show colleges into facilities of civic training and participation, the place college students can be taught the values of belonging, solidarity, justice, and public accountability.
Developed in collaboration with the Heart for Instructional Analysis and Improvement (CRDP) and with the help of UNESCO and different companions, this system offers colleges with a unified framework to show and apply the ideas of lively citizenship.
The initiative will begin with 150 colleges throughout Lebanon within the 2025–2026 educational 12 months, chosen from each private and non-private establishments to make sure regional illustration.
Every collaborating college will participate in a four-step course of – registration, coaching, civic engagement tasks, and nationwide recognition at an annual Citizenship Schooling Convention hosted on the Presidential Palace.
Coaching the Builders of the Future
By immersive workshops led by CRDP, principals and lecturers will probably be educated to combine civic engagement into their college tradition. The coaching covers matters similar to accountability, belonging, social justice, and democratic participation.
The initiative additionally promotes pupil councils, neighborhood tasks, and cross-school collaboration, remodeling school rooms into “areas of values and accountability.”
“To all college principals who bear the burden of our academic establishments, you’re the builders of the long run,” Mrs. Aoun mentioned. “And to our lecturers – regardless of the challenges you face, you stay the true pioneers of this challenge.”
Citizenship in Motion
Beneath the “College of Citizenship,” college students will design and lead civic tasks throughout a number of themes:
- Social cohesion and peacebuilding
- Environmental sustainability
- Rights and empowerment
- Well being and well-being
- Arts, tradition, and heritage
- Emergency solidarity and social work
By these actions, college students will apply civic abilities similar to teamwork, debate, problem-solving, and public talking whereas gaining a stronger sense of objective and belonging.
“By engagement, college students uncover the world in another way,” the First Woman’s group defined. “They acquire confidence, really feel helpful, and develop stronger – engagement adjustments the whole lot.”
Measuring Affect
A Citizenship Index, developed with UNESCO, will assess how colleges combine civic values into training and neighborhood life.
The outcomes will probably be revealed in an Annual Citizenship Schooling Report, in collaboration with the Asfari Institute on the American College of Beirut, providing insights and coverage suggestions for Lebanon’s training sector.
By the top of its first five-year cycle, the initiative goals to coach over 5,000 principals and lecturers, affect greater than 1,000 colleges, and attain half 1,000,000 college students and households nationwide.
“A Name for Citizenship”
Closing her speech, the First Woman emphasised that this isn’t a political or institutional challenge, however a shared nationwide endeavor:
“This challenge bears no identify of an individual, an establishment, or a celebration. It marks the start of one thing lengthy overdue – the start we should always have made proper after the battle, to carry our folks collectively,” she mentioned. “Right this moment, we will select to do nothing… or we will select to start, right here and now. For the whole lot is feasible when it stands beneath the roof of citizenship.”
For extra info, try the College of Citizenship web site.
