Lebanon

An English Access Microscholarship student enjoys one of the outdoor challenges during the Field Day event.

This past July, twenty-seven alumni headed out to clean the Ramlet el Bayda Beach in Beirut. In order to get more information about beach cleanings, the group contacted the NGO, Oil Spill Lebanon, for advice. In preparation for the event, the Facebook.com group “YES Alumni Lebanon” was used to confirm participation and it helped to get the word out quickly. During the beach cleaning, alumni members were astounded by the amounts of trash they found all over the shore. It became clear to them that making the beach spotless would be a challenge, but they kept their enthusiasm and motivation to clean as much as they could, filling more than fifty large garbage bags with trash. The alumni project also served as an awareness campaign as passing beachgoers stopped to ask what they were doing, and more importantly, inquired how they could help. Onlookers expressed their gratitude for the work the alumni were doing. The original plan was to clean the beach from 10AM until 4PM, but it became impossible to stay for the entire time due to the extreme summer heat. The group decided to call the event off early and decided to write up some advice for other alumni chapters on beach cleaning. The following are the lessons learned: hold any beach cleaning event before the summer season, work with other groups such as the environmental group Operation Big Blue to ensure a large number of participants and set up stations for water and rest. There were members of Operation Big Blue at the beach who informed the alums to keep in touch regarding upcoming beach cleaning events. Rayan Aboukhazam ’06 said, “This event was one of the best that we have ever done. So let's keep up the good work.”

Alumni gather for a photo after the English Access Microscholarship Field Day.

The alumni also organized and supervised an outdoor Field Day activity for the Department of State English Access Microscholarship Program. This scholarship program sponsors over 578 underprivileged youth from all regions of Lebanon for English language training. The preparations for the event required the alumni to work together to devise an action plan, gather sports equipment, and train each other on how to run a particular activity. The alumni divided and conquered the tasks in order to get everything ready in a short time period. They compiled a list of all of the required sports equipment they would need and called all of the sport stores in Lebanon. The executive committee met several times with Medinat Riyadieh employees in order get a visual of the field and draw an event map. After completing a test run of the various sports competitions the day before, the alumni were pumped and ready to hold the event. “It was amazing to see the YES alumni working together with the ACCESS students. For some of the ACCESS students, it was their first time in Beirut and you could see in their eyes how much they enjoyed the event,” said Edith Bitar, U.S. Embassy Cultural Affairs Assistant. The Field Day activity was a huge success as hundreds of Lebanese teenagers participated in nineteen different activities ranging from sack races to tug-of-war competitions to the long jump, limbo, and football, all managed by the YES alumni!