Beiruting News

On Saturday, young people did not only gather to protest. YouthSpeak Forum gathered 200 students from different universities in Lebanon around the major issues they see in their communities. The day, powered by AIESEC in Lebanon, was meant to activate young people to take action on what they want to change in their environment.

Together with partners like UNDP, PWC, Morgan, BDD, UK Lebanon Tech Hub, InfoPro, Grenoble Ecole du Management and many more the students worked on projects to solve a specific issue. One team won implementation of their project and one team won a spot at the Bootcamp by Altcity. The students were split into teams to come up with innovative ideas to solve issues from education and employment to the environment. Many creative ideas were pitched, from an app to gamify recycling for high-school students to a business model generating income for village inhabitants through the sale of organic and homemade products. The winning project, which will be implemented by AIESEC in Lebanon, is a newspaper by youth for youth, meant to fill a gap in reliable and relevant information felt by the young students.  "It was really great to all work together to find solutions to the problems we see around us, it gave me lots of energy as it was a first for me to think about a problem constructively rather than leaving it up to others to solve" said one of the students.

The day gathered stakeholders from different fields in society to work together on raising awareness and achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. "It's everybody's job to work on raising awareness and implementing the SDGs, from big corporates to NGO's to the youth. We should all set the example and work together" said Fadi Ganni, from Morgan International, one of the partners at the event. "To be better prepared for the future, young people should get experience outside their classrooms, because that is valuable experience in today's world".

The forum was organized by AIESEC in Lebanon as part of their YouthSpeak and Youth4GlobalGoals campaign to engage, inspire and activate young people all over the world. So far 90,000 people have joined their global call to action, with the survey still running until the end of March.