Lebanon

Technology with a Human Face: My Experience in Akkar, Lebanon, August 2005
Karim Kasim, Egyptian IUNV Specialist

Background:
It is a privilege in itself to be in a country that is going through some historic events. Lebanon remains not only the place where there is always political, economical, social, religious or even military struggles and contradictions, but also a place rich with the diversity of its nature, the special character of the Lebanese people and their way of life. It is a privilege to be here, indeed. Although my short term plans was to stay in my home country to work in development while pursuing my masters in professional development, I could not resist an offer to go to Lebanon as an international UN Volunteer. I turned down more than one international post in the last year, but this time I really thought it would be a big loss if I decline it. For me as an Arab, Egyptian development -on the make- practitioner, Lebanon is a special country with deep history, strategic location, diverse population, mosaic society, relative openness and freedom and volatile political reality. Therefore, it is quit attractive to be able to work and live in such a country. Learning is just enormous, and I did not/could not say no to such an opportunity.

Moreover, working to make a change in people’s life –especially in another country than mine- is quit interesting; it opens the door for totally different world of learning. The interaction between myself, as an outside, with local people in Akkar, for instance, gives me totally a new perspective about Lebanon and the Lebanese. As much as I work with them, I get to know them more, their culture, way of living, local reality, interests and challenges.

To be honest, the more I deal with people in underprivileged areas, the more I can relate myself to them. In other words, it helps me confirm and verify that people all over the world have so many in common no matter what their ethnic, religious, cultural or political backgrounds. It is amazing to see how people are facing similar challenges and are sometimes reacting in similar ways.

Despite the troublesome reality of the world today in terms of conflicts and wars, there are so many similarities that could bring people together instead of diving them.

Living the experience and knowing reality; lack of knowledge flourishes misconceptions and stereotypes:
As far as stereotyping is concerned, it was also amazing for me to learn about lots of stereotypes starting from the one I had about Lebanon and the Lebanese when I was in Egypt to the ones they have about each other’s. The unlimited freedom of expression is well established in the Lebanese context while there are limitations linked to the sectarian nature of the society. The war has affected the Lebanese personality positively as well as negatively.

The Lebanese people that I have personally known abroad are somehow different from those who live within Lebanon. Amazingly, each group has special essences of the Lebanese character. The people have the richness/strength of living and surviving very hard times during the civil war. They know very well the cost of the war that they, sometimes, were forced to pay; yet they were and still committed to maintain peace. The ones who live abroad know very well how to be far from home. Most of them are attached to their home land and they do try to support it by, at least, paying it a visit every summer. I am not trying to show the picture as pinky as it may appear because there are of course negative and positive sides of each society, but here I am reflecting the points that really drew my attention and I felt they were special.

I was amazed when I watched an interview with two prisoners from the time of the war. They came from two different areas and two different religious backgrounds; Christianity and Islam. They talked about the first time they dealt with each other knowing that they derived from two different areas. Neither one of them knew they were similar human beings and they did have the same interests and aspirations of their fellow young men. When they were fighting, each one thought that those on the other side were monsters and should be vanished. But because of the new era the Lebanese have entered, there were so many possibilities to make enemies friends. War neither feeds the hungry nor shelters the homeless.  

My assignment:
I am based in Beirut and my assignment consists of two parts; office work, planning and preparations in the main office in Beirut and implementing activities in the field in two areas of Lebanon; Akkar (North) and Chouf ( Mount Lebanon).  

My experience :
What I am so proud to speak about in this article is my experience in the northern region of Lebanon namely in Akkar. Akkar is around 2 driving hours from Beirut, the capital. It is the most underprivileged region of all Lebanon. People live mainly of agriculture and very limited industry and tourism. Despite the difficult living conditions that result from poor services and limited attention from the central government, people are just great there.

They have some very nice oriental traditions of hospitality and warmth. It is worth mentioning here that Akkar was the region that least suffered from the devastating Lebanese war between mid 1970s and early 1990s. Christian villages lived side by side with Muslim ones. They managed – as local people say- to keep the war away. They have a good sense of belonging and they are eager to do something for their societies on voluntary basis. And here was the cross road where we – the UNVs – managed to meet them to do something together for the good of the community.

The overall mission of the UNV team of national and international volunteers was to support municipalities, cooperatives and youth groups and build their capacity to be better prepared to implement their development ideas and to improve their communities. As of my area of intervention, it is in the ICTD and the networking.

Briefly, I am so proud to be able to play a role in providing the tool for young people to communicate and to enhance their knowledge. I worked with the UNDP regional office in Akkar, the municipality and local people to make a dream comes true. We worked together to establish the municipal center for culture and information technology, as they decided to call it. Each party played a role to bring the center to reality; planning, funding, preparations, and operation. My involvement was from the very first step of providing technical advice on the writing of the project document, defining the equipment needed, preparing the location and following it up. Finally I followed up the installment of the equipment, the planning for operations and the launching of activities. In two villages; Kherbet Char and Hrar, the centers were equipped with 10 computers each, local area network and connection to Internet. The most important and dear part to me was the human part, where I was also involved in the awareness and promotion of the presence of such a center in the middle of the village while talking to local people.

People are ready to get motivated once they see an opportunity for something good. Once they realize the importance they grasp the opportunity and they spread the word. One important part I always see in the use of computers and Internet by people for the first time is the hunger for knowledge and the great interest to make use of this.

If used correctly, computer and Internet can keep children from the street, where they learn things that harm them. Instead of setting doing nothing, they have the opportunity to search for information about their country, region and even village. Some have started already collecting information in order to upload and have a presence in the cyber space.

It is amazing how ICT can help people realizing their own individual and collective potentials. For me, I care less about teaching them every single part of the computer; I even care much less about having them all become programmers. It is great of course if we can make it, but for me the most important thing is to break the ice with this technological tool, to have everybody using it as a tool in his/her works whatever those works are. The student goes online, finds the latest about the geography of Lebanon, how Akkar is part of a bigger low agricultural land that extends from north Lebanon all the way up to Turkey, downloads maps… etc.

Everybody could use technology to express himself or herself, make sure his/her voice is heard, build his/her confidence and existence as citizens, learn about his/her rights and duties, and practice them. It is a whole world of opportunities, if used right, for the expansion of knowledge and capacity building, and I am proud to be here working with others to help them just do that.