Youth In Action Gains Visibility in Daily Star, May 31st 2007

Called to account: Young activists target graft in high places
'Youth in Action' project wants to create pressure for updating of 'completely flawed' corruption legislation
By Nour Samaha
Daily Star staff

Thursday, May 31, 2007
BEIRUT: Lebanese law 154/99, meant to regulate corruption among civil servants, has become a cause for concern for some people dedicated to reducing the country's democratic deficit. The civil society movement Nahwa al-Muwatiniya (NAM) has decided to rally young people and lobby Parliament in an effort to redress the legislation's shortcomings.

Law 154/99, otherwise known as the Illicit Wealth Law, was created in 1954 but has yet to be used because of glaring flaws in its design, NAM says. Its original purpose was to scrutinize the role of public servants, ensure they fulfill their duties and limit corruption in Parliament. However, says NAM, the law is unacceptable in its current form.

"The law is meant to monitor the role of public servants and parliamentarians, but it is not working - it is completely flawed," said NAM coordinator Sonya Day in an interview with The Daily Star. "We are working on a project that empowers the youth to lobby their parliamentarians to change the law."
The project, known as Youth In Action, is designed to educate youths on their rights as Lebanese citizens and on the powers they have to make a difference in how the country is managed and run.
"We are working on two main objectives," said project leader Sahar Franjieh.
"The first [is] to empower youths in taking part in the decision-making process and the formation of the country. The second objective is to train the youths in lobbying and advocacy skills, in order for them to use these newly found abilities on parliamentarians and to fight corruption."

Sponsored by the World Bank, the project has already completed several workshops throughout the country, including sessions in Beirut, Sidon, Baalbek and Tripoli. Still to be completed are workshops in Nabatieh and Zahle.
Youths aged 18-25 - a mixture of university students and professionals - can participate in the workshops, which are designed to help students gain awareness of and practice their rights as citizens.
"Once they attend the training workshop, the youths then go and call parliamentarians in order to push for an amendment to the law," said Franjieh. "The previous workshops have been successful because volunteers who attended them have managed to secure meetings with certain parliamentarians to discuss the law. This is very positive for us and for [the youths]."

It is necessary to create a culture and tradition of working with youths and building awareness of citizens' rights, added Franjieh. "Their role is not just to go and vote," she said. "They have other rights as well, such as monitoring their parliamentarians."
The workshops consist of a series of lectures and group participation sessions with the presence of legal experts. NAM is developing the workshops into a campaign to assess the role of citizens in Lebanon through the participation of local and international non-governmental organizations.
"While we have implemented this project, we think the participation of other groups is necessary to bring awareness to the issue," she said. "In addition, we have had positive feedback from some of the parliamentarians we have lobbied."
During the lobbying of the parliamentarians, the youths have managed to bring together at least half a dozen officials - from differing party blocs - to sign the youths' petition and support their case.
"The petition, essentially, is to get enough official signatures to ensure that the next time there is a parliamentary session, this issue of amending the law will be brought up and put on the agenda," said Day.
While it may not be successful the first time, the group is not willing to give up. "We will keep on trying," said Franjieh. "You can't get anywhere unless you try, and the youths are motivated to do this."
The youth remain the focus of the entire project and the campaign. "The whole idea is to get a group of youths to become expert lobbyists and who know how to lobby when a law needs to be amended," she said.
As the situation in the country deteriorates, movements and groups such as NAM continue to plan for the future, in an effort to improve the political system and prevent deadlocks.

NAM's next Youth In Action workshop will take place Saturday, June 2 in Nabatieh in the Cultural Council of the South from 10 a.m.