Challenges of Engaging Young People in Civil Society through NGO Trainings in Lebanon

NGOs conduct trainings of young people in Lebanon to ‘engage them in civil society’. This should be understood as providing young people with skills and motivation to ’organize, advocate and act by themselves’, thus enabling them to become ‘agents of change’ as part of Lebanon’s civil society. This report draws on six months of field work in various youth training projects in Lebanon, including a ‘leader training’ organized by the author of this report for MS Action Aid Denmark (MS). The purpose of the report is to explore the challenges and outcomes of the training approach used by MS in the MENA region, in order to provide them with recommendations about how to proceed in their effort to engage young people in civil society in Lebanon.