On October 11,2022 “Dialectic institution“organized a lively and informative workshop “Youth for SDGs” in strategic partnership with the “United Nations Global Compact Network” Lebanon,“Rotaract” Lebanon,“Kristies Lab” and “Assafir Newspaper”.
The workshop featured three lively and interactive sessions bolstered by multidisciplinary and intergenerational insights’ exchange with the main aim of igniting the youth activation towards the SDGs.
The workshop was inaugurated by the founder and CEO of “Dialectic Institution” Hayat ElHariri, who welcomed the participants and introduced the objective of this workshop.
Then she kicked off the first awareness raising session “Deep Dive on the SDGs” along with Ayah Sharif, communication and project manager at “Dialectic Institution”. This deep dive session reflected the SDGs landscape on the global scale in terms of progress, challenges and opportunities and covered the following key areas:
- Features of the UN 2030 and the 17 SDGs
- The Interconnectedness of the SDGs
- Current progress and the magnified impact of the COVID-19 pandemic along with the wars, conflicts and political unrests
- Key players for moving forward including media, government, academia and business
This SDG informative session was then followed by a key motivational speech of Christina Khater, founder and managing partner of “Kristies Lab” and SDG Pioneer of the “UN Global Compact” Khater shared her entrepreneurial servant leadership style, strategies of success and innovation, in addition to personal stories of growth, setbacks, failures and life lessons. During her motivational word, she stressed on the pivotal role of the youth in driving the much-needed developmental change stating, “Our youth are our future”.
She concluded her inspirational remarks with a powerful message to the youth “I started with distributing flyers, seven years later; I ended up with seven Business Regional Offices. If you believe in your dreams, they can take you anywhere.”
The workshop then moved into a lively, an engaging and a diversified session “From the Youth to the Youth” which featured a lineup of youth speakers from a range of organizations and perspectives.
It started with highlighting the SDG Brain Lab Program of the “United Nations Global Compact Network” (UN GCNL) Lebanon and the key findings of a national report that has been conducted from the youth, about “the youth and for the youth” of Lebanon. This segment was presented by the Alaa Karanouh, community impact manager at UN GCNL and Nathalie Fakherddine, ambassador of change to the UN GCNL.
This statistical insightful session was then followed by an engaging hands-on session on Leadership by Zina Yassine, “Rotaract Academy” liaison. This session entailed engaging experiential exercises that magnified the engagement of the participants and enabled a dynamic exchange of experiences.
The session then moved towards sharing a success story and highlighting concrete examples on social and responsible entrepreneurship. This best practice session was presented by Dana Al Mawla, social media coordinator at “Dialectic Institution” and founder of “dee.thebrand”; a slow fashion-oriented brand driven by the ultimate values of recyclable and circular fashion to advance the efforts on Climate Action.
The workshop was then concluded by the launch of the “Youth Circles”. It is a homegrown initiative of Dialectic that aims to provide a dynamic platform for the Lebanese youth to connect with key decision makers and industry key players working around the 17 SDGs of the UN 2030 Agenda. It also provides the youth with an opportunity to create, ideate and innovate for digital activism and campaigns for the SDGs.
"Our youth are our leaders of tomorrow,We will spare no effort to combine efforts with strategic partners to enhance their job readiness, enhance their skillset and engage them in the decision-making processes"
