Youth Community Empowerment Program (YCEP)
The Youth Community Empowerment Program (YCEP) promoted tolerance and conflict mitigation among the ethnically and religiously diverse youth of Lebanon.
YCEP increased the ability of youth-led Lebanese community service organizations (CSOs) to conduct conflict mitigation projects in their communities. This partnership between the Global Opportunities Fund of the United Kingdom Foreign and Commonwealth Office, IREX, and IREX Europe sought to build the capacity of Lebanese grassroots civil society.
This project is now closed.
Goals
• Empower promising grassroots organizations across Lebanon, specifically in communities with histories of sectarian and ethnic tension, to address religious and political conflicts in their societies
• Provide initial intensive training on conflict mitigation techniques, program design, and management to six CSOs and offer ongoing mentoring and training to ensure project success and organizational development.
• Establish the Youth Community Action Network (Youth CAN), a network of community-based organizations, to encourage youth activism throughout Lebanon
Background
Twenty-six percent of Lebanese youth aged 15-24 are unemployed. In fact, young people comprise approximately half of Lebanon’s unemployed population. Economic hardship coupled with long-standing ethnic and religious tensions threaten to push cycles of conflict and violence into the future. However, leadership programs that target diverse youth can give them the skills and self-confidence to improve their lives and transform their communities. The energy, creativity, and enthusiasm of young people represent a foundation for community development, increased volunteerism, and economic growth. YCEP also empowered youth-led civil society organizations to work with youth to address complex issues of sectarian divide through practical and constructive initiatives.
Project Activities
Build capacity of youth: YCEP provided mentoring and hands-on workshops that supported the development of youth-led community service organizations.
Support the implementation of CSO initiatives: By providing conflict resolution training to CSOs, IREX supported projects that mobilize youth to bridge sectarian divides and promote peaceful development.
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Project Facts
The Draw to Build project brought together students from four different religiously-affiliated schools in the Bekaa Valley to learn conflict mitigation tools and to work together to create murals to spread tolerance.
Through the United…Never again Divided project in South Mount Lebanon, Druze and Christian communities – that had not interacted since the Civil War – came together through traditional storytelling events.
Youth from different confessional backgrounds in North Lebanon came together to create a play on the importance of religious tolerance through the Together We Reconstruct project.
We Love Tripoli launched Tripoli’s first online volunteer management system, which mobilized youth to cross political and sectarian divides, volunteer in their communities, and work for the common cause of improving their city’s conditions.
News & Impact
People
Program Director, Lebanon
