المنتدى العالمي المعني بالأمن الغذائي والتغذية

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    • Dear all,

      Vulnerable youth, especially refugees, are facing a lot of difficulties in the Middle Eastern area due to the unstable situation. Pressure from the hosting community is constantly increasing while few sustainable solutions are offered. In fact, refugees in Lebanon face a very complicated legal situation limiting their world of work to three sectors; agriculture, craftsmanship and construction. The latter working sectors are generally little paid, thus the rise of child labor as a way to supplementary provide their families. Even more, illiteracy and school dropout levels are quite high mainly due to complicate social situations and lack of professional and adequate support.   

      Accordingly our work in Lebanon targets the vulnerable local and refugee youth communities (15-25 y.o.) in order to help them cooperate and improve the agriculture and rural sectors. Agriculture vocational training (AVT) is being implemented, since 2014, for the empowerment of youth abilities in the agriculture sectors. In fact, short term courses allow participants to acquire a specialized skill in a relatively small period of time (5-7 days); subjects range from agriculture practices such as pruning and grafting, installation of irrigation systems and micro gardening to food transformation techniques as the production of jams, olive oil and bread. While medium term courses help students acquire a wider range of information in various agriculture sectors such as gardening, nurseries, arboriculture and horticulture simultaneously. By the end of the both trainings, students who successfully complete the courses benefit from official certificates allowing them to enhance their working status as well as their income.

      Meanwhile, basic literacy and numeracy (BLN) and life skills courses (LS) are also implemented targeting the same youth category. BLN courses are divided into two; the first for illiterate participants and the second for dropout students who wishes to develop their English and IT skills. Whereas LS courses help participants express there self and know their basic rights. Furthermore, all participants are offered an internship opportunity in order to introduce them to the world of work. Local and national companies are contacted around the year in order to identify their needs in term of workforce and encouraged to receive beneficiaries for internships as a way to cover their gaps.

      In numbers, a total of 280 students have successfully completed the medium term and life skills courses during the last two years; this number is expected to reach more than 500 student with this year course. Even more, around 1000 participants will benefit from the BLN and life skills courses and 500 from the short term course this year. Finally, 50 companies already accepted to receive participants for internships in the last two years and the number is also expected to raise this year in order to assure internships for more than a 100 beneficiary.

      All inclusive, we believe that this work can help the vulnerable youth category in Lebanon integrate in the agriculture sector and his society by offering him the right tools and proper formation.