Dear Friends,
We hope our email finds you well in these challenging times.
Let me start by thanking you for your generosity and kind support.
The future has never felt so unpredictable for us here in Lebanon. Sadly, every day brings its own challenges and incidents. Despite all this, we’re still doing everything possible to sustain our life-changing youth employment program operations.
Since our last update, we’ve upgraded our employment program, the Employment Hub, to provide a more comprehensive learning experience and better prepare participating university graduates for employment.
We continue to provide participants with stipends covering the duration of the program, partly to incentivise their engagement but even more importantly because the economic crisis has rendered life unaffordable for most Lebanese living in the country.
Your support has already had an impact on the lives of 230 university graduates over the past couple of years, including Kevin.
Kevin is a 24 year-old university graduate and cancer survivor who joined the program late last year. Kevin joined the program in the midst of his battle with cancer, and a deep sense of despair caused by the current situation.
Kevin credits the program for giving him the strength to fight, and the will to live. Thankfully he’s now cancer-free and happily employed!
Furthermore, results from our first two rounds show that 63% of participants found jobs upon completing our program. We are looking forward to seeing even higher numbers after significantly improving and strengthening our program. We look forward to sharing the results with you in the coming months!
This year, we’ll be onboarding 100 more youth into the Employment Hub. Donations made to this campaign go directly into the pockets of these hard-working youth, helping them to cover their basic needs while they are enrolled in our program. Thank you as always for your support!
With Gratitude Always,
Hello,
Our warmest wishes for a bright, healthy, and happy 2022! We hope this update finds you well amidst renewed concern over the spread of COVID-19 and its variants.
Thanks to you, Steven, Marianna, Ahmad, as well as 130 other youth, have now completed Nawaya's Career Path Program.
They've engaged in hands-on internships, online training, and career coaching, all the while earning a monthly stipend to help support them through difficult financial times in Lebanon.
Steven will be joining our team in 2022, and Ahmad has found a job with a local web development company. Marianna is still looking for work but feels more confident with newly acquired skills.
Although we are still collecting data from the full program, we have some preliminary results that we are excited to share with you: 67% of the 80 youth who graduated from our pilot program are now currently generating income - either through full-time work, part-time work, consultancies, freelancing, self-employment, or via paid internships.
These results have proven that this program can transform lives even during the most difficult of circumstances, and we can't wait to grow this program, improve it further, reach more youth, and impact more lives in 2022.
Thank you for your generosity, you've helped youth from the program weather the crises in their lives and this makes all the difference to them, their families, and us.
Your donations have helped us connect them to internships, mentors, jobs, and other learning opportunities. They've also helped instill a sense of hope, confidence, and motivation in challenging circumstances.
Again, thank you for all you do for our youth. You are a part of their lives too.
Sincerely,
Celine
Hello,
The past two years have undoubtedly been challenging for the entire world.
Meanwhile, here in Lebanon, our list of struggles grows by the day; from COVID19, to the Beirut explosions, to the economic collapse, to the shortages in food, water, medicine, fuel, and power, etc…
All factors that have crippled Lebanon’s youth, pushed thousands to leave the country, and plunged the vast majority of the rest in deep despair.
The past two years have not been easy indeed, yet here at Nawaya, we firmly believe that upskilling youth and preparing them to compete in the job market is essential to their personal wellbeing and financial stability. This is exactly what we continue to work for through the Career Path Program, in partnership with UNICEF and Jobs for Lebanon.
While we may not be able to solve the country’s issues, thanks to your kind and generous donations, we just might be able to change a few lives by instilling a sense of purpose, hope, and motivation, all the while connecting youth to valuable opportunities.
Nawaya's Career Path Program has reached a total of 83 youth so far and we've recruited 50 more youth to benefit from round two of the program.
Meanwhile, our team continues to work on building new relationships with partners to provide youth in the program with internships that would enrich their experience and help them find further employment. Some of our latest partners include Berytech, SE Factory, and Arc en Ciel.
Now, and without further ado, we leave you with a selection of youth success stories from the program.
Once again, thank you so much for your very generous support, which has certainly changed the lives of a number of youth and their families!
Justine, 25 Years Old, from Beirut
The Beirut blasts were tragic for Justine and her family! They destroyed her father’s small shop, and only source of income, and sadly, injured her sister.
By some miracle, Justine was unharmed, but her memory of that terrible day is hazy. All she can recall is being torn between helping her sister and trying to find her father to make sure that he had survived the blast.
As an interior design graduate, and like many other young graduates in Lebanon, Justine was faced with a cruel reality upon graduating; an economy in ruins, a stagnant job market, and nowhere to turn to. The blasts were the last straw.
She’d lost all hope before enrolling in Nawaya’s Employment Hub but she poured her heart and soul into growing and developing her skills, in an effort to stay sane.
Just a few months after completing the program, Nawaya helped connect Justine to a job opportunity as a part-time architect with the Beirut Heritage Initiative.
Khaled, 24 Years Old, from Beirut
Khaled was born to a proud, tight-knit family. His father used to work as a taxi driver to support the family, and so Khaled had to work really hard in order to be able to afford his university tuition - one which he values tremendously, and is extremely proud of.
Like many youth his age, Khaled graduated into a declining economy, followed by COVID19, and then the Beirut explosion.
While Khaled and his family were unharmed physically by the blast, their home was completely destroyed by it, leaving them homeless for weeks.
“I saw things I should have never seen that day on my way home to check on my family. Internally, I’m as destroyed as our home,” says Khaled
As difficult as this experience is for a young person, Khaled chose gratitude above all else. That’s how he managed to join our training program and complete it.
A program which he says has elevated his communication skills, and helped him set a clear path forward for his career.
While the job market is almost at a halt in Lebanon, Khaled has managed to find a stable job with a local company that shares his values and appreciates his skills.
His visibility for the future is currently out of focus, but he is already planning on continuing his studies while working and supporting his family.
Rima, 21 Years Old, from Beirut
Outspoken, strong, and highly motivated twenty-one year old Rima is a journalism graduate who has been let down one too many times by gender and religious biases in her hunt for a job.
“You’re very pretty, you mayqualify for the job if you remove your veil and change the way you present yourself. I’ve heard this sentence more times than I can count,” says Rima.
Despite all this, Rima believes in hard work and remains focused on self-improvement and development.
Rima is now pursuing a Master’s degree and has recently landed a job in communications with a partner non-profit organization.
She’d started considering working at a non-profit ever since she joined the Employment Hub program - a program she credits for opening up an alternate career pathway for her, as her experience trying to practice journalism was faced with many challenges.
Before joining the program though, Rima couldn’t make sense of what was happening to Lebanon, then Beirut was destroyed. She remembers being in shock, feeling deeply destabilized and conflicted.
Despite these difficult circumstances, Rima refuses to adapt, and continuously challenges these circumstances by challenging herself - to learn, to grow, to work.
Fiona, 24 Years Old, Beirut
At twenty four years old, Fiona holds a Master’s degree in educational administration from the Lebanese University.
Despite her education, Fiona found it difficult to find a job that matches her skills and aspirations. The only jobs that were available were ones that wouldn't value her education, skills or ambition.
“Our financial situation at home was difficult. My father had lost his job and so had my sister,” Fiona.
Coupled together, these factors drove Fiona towards joining the Employment Hub program.
Driven by a deep desire to help others, and by interning at Beit Al Baraka, one of our program partners, Fiona proved very capable and so she was hired before completing the program.
Through the program, Fiona wholeheartedly challenged herself and the bleak ambiance in the country by staying focused on learning, setting a career path, and pursuing it.
Fiona’s story is like many other youth her age, except that she was one of the lucky few who has managed to secure a stable income for her family, staving off hunger and leading a dignified life.
With Gratitude,
Celine
Hello,
I hope this update finds you and your loved ones in good health.
While the world races to achieve immunity against COVID19, works to support those affected, and revive economies in the aftermath, Lebanon continues to free-fall into economic collapse, in addition to the pandemic and its effects.
As stressors in the country continue to add up, poverty in Lebanon is likely to worsen in 2021.
UN ESCWA estimates reveal that more than 55% of the country's population is now trapped in poverty and struggling for bare necessities, while Lebanon’s youth watch in complete despair as their education, and hard work “goes to waste”.
While some choose to leave the country, those with no means to do so, now more than ever, depend on programs like The Nawaya Network’s Employment Hub for hope, continuity, and yes, the monthly stipends provided within the program.
For many, this stipend is the only source of income in the household.
As such, we renew our thanks to you for your continued support to the youth enrolled in the Employment Hub, and would like to bring you up to speed on progress achieved to date.
Eighty-one youth have now completed the program, including the internship, online training, and coaching sessions, some of whom have landed jobs with organizations they were interning at during the program.
All of the youth participating in the program have expressed the value of the learning and development experience received throughout the duration of the program, therefore reporting higher levels of confidence, and motivation to pursue their job hunt despite these difficult times.
We’ve also onboarded fifty-one new youth into the program. They’ve now completed their internships enabling them to add hands-on experience to their CVs.
From a strategic standpoint, we’re continuing to expand our network of partners with the aim of broadening the spectrum of internships to match the number of youth and their majors.
Before we move on to have a look at what the numbers say about the program, we’d like to remind you that 100% of your donations to the Employment Hub go directly to fund the youth stipends:
Last but not least, we’d like to invite you to watch this short video of Fiona’s success story, one of the youth who has completed the program.
As always, we would love to hear from you, please feel free to reach out with any questions, comments, or suggestions at contact@nawaya.org.
Thank you as always for your generous support and for standing by Lebanon's youth during these challenging times!
Sincerely,
Celine Akkary
Links:
Hello,
Happy New Year 2021 on behalf of The Nawaya Network team!
We here at The Nawaya Network are so proud of our recent work to provide youth in Lebanon with employment opportunities, and we’d like to thank you for believing in our mission and for being a part of our community.
Youth in Lebanon bravely fight and defy difficult circumstances day in and day out.
Our youth are remarkable, and their strength is inspiring. They are young adults, daughters, sons, sisters, brothers, spouses, parents, friends… They laugh, cry, and have HOPE in the face of these terrifying times.
For the past three months, we've been able to build strong working relationships with acting relief organizations with the aim of supporting 27 youths from areas affected by the Beirut blasts. We've worked hard to connect them to paid internship opportunities (thanks to your generous donations!) by working with relief organizations and have partnered up with Jobs for Lebanon to provide them with online employability skill-building.
These 27 youths have been interning with numerous NGOs, including:
Live Love Beirut, a social enterprise on a mission to build communities that create hope, and a positive impact for nature, society, and culture in Beirut.
At Live Love Beirut, referred youth have supported the organization by managing their relief call center which supports thousands affected by the explosion, inputting the data from the calls on the system, assisting with events such as the Christmas Market, and sorting and managing donations.
The Volunteer Circle is an enterprise that connects NGOs to volunteers. Youth referred to the Volunteer Circle assist in coordinating and managing the different activities with the partners, finding volunteers for these opportunities, creating stories for communications purposes from volunteers, and data entry. Some of these youth have been deployed to do fieldwork with Beit Al Barakeh, Stand for Women & Ahla Fawda through The Volunteer Circle.
These 27 youth will be joining Jobs for Lebanon starting February where they will receive coaching support on the job application process and help in applying for three jobs through the Jobs for Lebanon platform. The main of this program is to increase the employability skills of youth in Lebanon and therefore increase their chances of landing jobs as they complete our three-months paid internship program.
In the coming two weeks, and by the third week of January 2021, we will be onboarding 54 more youth who will start their internships with Live Love Beirut, Arc En Ciel, Loyac, SE Factory, Rise Up Lebanon, and The Volunteer Circle.
By the end of 2021, we aim to have reached up to 130 youth in Lebanon through this program alone!
Our warriors are why we do what we do, YOU are the how! You are the essential piece of the puzzle, your support makes all of our work imaginable and possible and allows us to think bigger, and challenge ourselves to find better and new ways to serve youth every day.
With Gratitude,
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