Leen el Harake Addresses The Challenges of Independent Activism and Raises a Road Map to University’s Board of Trustees

Upon the wide success of “Independent Activism” session that was held on, Leen Elharake, an LAU MEPI TL student, together with her colleague Nader Akoum, organized another session under the same theme entitled: Independent Activism: A Student Collective– The Sequel; with the aim to combat the contentious rise of corruption and the severe social, political and economic stress conditions that threatens Lebanon and its very existence as a nation.

In this session Elharake and Akoum chose to target LAU’s students both undergrads and alumni with the objective to anchor the culture of independent activism within the campus as a first stage.

Hosting 30 participants with presence of the LAU MEPI TL Political Governance Committee, the session was kicked off with an “icebreaker” introduction where the moderators provided an  overview of the workshop objectives and introduces the importance of political independence and a recap on the previous session.

Being and extension of the first session, participants were divided into groups and given the case studies that were raised in the first round and were invited to examine each case and draft policies as an attempt to start implementing them on campus. To make the workshop more engaging, the audience brainstormed on the causes and effects of adopting wrong political practices and biased political thinking based on sectarianism.

Topics discussed were about youth immigration, economic crisis, hate speech, sectarianism, discrimination and rape.

Far from being a theoretical session, participants left the session with tangible draft policies that Elharake and Akoum had raised to the university’s administration.

Being proactive, highly motivated, and creatively committed to the cause, Elharake is already implementing leadership skills that she learned from MEPI TL Program with the purpose to achieve radical positive change in the community.