Social and Employment
Place
Beirut, Lebanon
Sponsor
Nasri Chami
Grant(s)
50 000 € to the Selection Committee at 2007/04/03
Project leader
IECD
«
The Osseiran foundation is an established institution in Lebanon and enjoys an excellent reputation. Its mission answers a genuine need for technical training and the professionalization of children in difficulty.
»Nasri Chami
One year after the war between Israel and Hezbollah, Lebanon continues to suffer the heavy legacy of a conflict that, once again, plunged the country into a grave economic and financial crisis. Although reconstruction is now the watchword, many youths, lacking sufficient qualifications, are badly hit by unemployment. As part of its "Grains of Hope" program, the European Institute for Cooperation and Development (IECD), a French NGO created in 1988, furnishes logistic support and expertise (teacher training) to six Lebanese vocational schools. Its aim is to teach more than 1600 youths a trade in the highly sought after fields of electricity, electronics and electric engineering.
Rebuiling the workshops of the Foyer de la Providence
Among the six schools selected by the NGO, the Foyer de la Providence, created in 1967 at Fanar (Greater Beirut) by the Osseiran Foundation, admits, educates and trains, without any religious distinction, 250 boys from 12 to 19 years of age having serious psychological problems caused by extremely difficult family situations. These adolescents, many of them school dropouts, could have become juvenile delinquents had they not pushed open the doors of this new home.
Upon obtaining the professional diploma or technical certificate, Foyer de la Providence gives the young graduates a job or helps them pursue advanced studies in other institutions.
The Foyer de la Providence and the school have to deal with several problems, including the renovation of its buildings. These operations are vital and remain the indispensable prerequisite to the installation of any new facility. For the adolescents to continue their vocational training and build themselves a future, the Veolia foundation, alongside the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Schneider Foundation, has decided to participate in the refurbishing of the workshops.