YES Suggests

What you came up with during your regional meetings!

South Regional Meeting

  • Talent show for orphans​ collaborating with Orphan Welfare Society-Saida. They are going to provide most of the tools for us. We just need volunteers, judges (from us), and prizes (medals) for all orphans.
  • Visiting the orphanage​ before the event in order to survey the orphans (Age range from 9 to 14) about their preferred talents. Those who have similar interests can perform as a group, (their choice) (​idea by Belal Naboulsi)​. Every volunteer will support a group of orphans, some judges, and others will handle the logistic part of the event. The event will take place most probably by the end of February-Start of March.
  • YES cycling activity in Tyre ​(idea by Souhaib Moussa). ​Similar to the hike that we did last year, we are going to spend a fun day in tyre mainly cycling, and of course if you want to bring friends you can! This will take place most probably by the end of spring season.
  • YES hiking activity in Metn & Keserwan region by collaborating with Rabab Cancer foundation. ​Ali Akil, Metn & Keserwan coordinator is going to establish the collaboration with Rabab Cancer Foundation. This event is going to be multi-regional as South, Beirut, and Metn & Keserwan regions will participate. It is going to be a fun day and at the same time promoting YES by hiking for a good cause. The estimate month for the event is still pending.
  • YES give and take ​(idea by Hisham Younes). ​Getting a mini grant to get boxes and put them in famous public places all around South where people can drop books,clothes,food,etc and others can benefit from them.
  • Grants: B​ilal Naboulsi ​is planning to apply for a grant for teaching English to English teachers. Also, there is a good chance that we apply for a grant to give High School students a series of workshops about some IT skills and making them aware of the scholarships provided for them.
  • Renovation project (​idea by Sara Hijazi). ​We still need to discuss this idea in future meetings.
  • Donation Event. A​lso, this idea needs to be discussed in future meetings

Beirut Regional Meeting

  • Address book: we will be contacting every single one of you to get their updated contact information.
  • For the newsletter, we want to know what you’re working on: if you’re volunteering on a regular basis, or starting a project, got a scholarship, attended a conference… This way, we can highlight your work and achievements. Every two weeks or so, you can contact your regional representative, to update them. We might create a shared google doc, so you can add them yourself. This will be shared with Leen. Our first issue should be released very soon.
  • We are also creating a database for the NGOs we’re part of or organizations we have collaborated with in the past. This will be shared with everyone.

For the upcoming months:

  • We will be dividing the year by themes. The theme will last approximately 2-3 months. Throughout this period we will be doing projects/events related to the main theme. Our first one this year will be Womanhood / Feminism ( Women’s day is next month). So if you have an idea for a project or an event / know someone working in this field/ want to recommend a place for future events/ want to help out, please let me know.
  • Show us your creative side! Whether you're living in Lebanon or abroad, we want your input in any shape or form!! It could be a painting, an interesting article, video, poem or music...

Ideas For Future events:

  • Teaching English (suggested by Thalia): there is a place in Beirut where kids of different nationalities (orphans or left out) are taken care of. The purpose of the volunteer project is to support them by having an English teaching summer program where we can also cover hygiene and other topics. We will need to discuss this idea in future events.
  • Multiple themes were discussed like women empowerment/ environment/health/ education.
  • YES newbies: A career guidance workshop, where we not only discuss universities and majors, but also highschool. There has been an agreement that the re-entry part should become more personal and not only cover the most basic information( idea to be discussed further) ( suggested by Hoda and Ali)
  • Teaching coding (suggested by maya): idea to be developed in the upcoming month
  • Science Fair/Job Fair (suggested by Roudaina and Hoda): This could be an event for just science related themes, or we can have booths with different majors. This will be dedicated to teens and high-schoolers.


Bekaa Regional Meeting

  • Decided on having monthly meetings and our first and main goal was to have a very fun day which would encourage more alumni to participate and be committed, as well as calling and contacting the alumni individually to see who is interested in joining us.
  • Decided (first proposed by Samaya) that we will conduct a field day in Bekaa for our alumni and alumni from different regions where we will visit touristic sights, go on the new hiking trail in Anjar (proposed by Paula and Nairy) and then make our way to Zahle, then Baalbak (the trip will include lunch and later whoever wants to stay we could have a party all together).
  • Want to participate in the sports events that will be happening in coordination with other regions (Nadim emphasized this project)
  • Conducting a Wellness fair in Bekaa in the summer to introduce to Alumni and to the general public detailed information about the 6 main pillars of health
  • Conducting improvisation workshop to alumni to emphasize their creative side and help them deal better with spontaneous situations
  • Career guidance to the new Alumni and the Alumni graduating schools

All the people who attended were very willing to be committed and active this year and had great ideas of projects that we could potentially implement throughout the year

North Regional Meeting

  • How is YES Lebanon spreading awareness about the current Corona issue? (Idea by Gabriel)

» Behavorial Aspect; Google form to see the behavior of all the alumni in the yes community during the corona crisis and how has it changed

» Awareness Content from professionals (provided by Mhamad Issa Jamal)

  • Sanitizers in Boxes distributed to families (Idea by Karine Khatib)

» Needs funding

» Will be working on a proposal

  • Playback theater for Mother’s Day at an Elderly’s

» Depends on the corona crisis and if it gets worse then we cannot come near any day care

  • Creating a group for yes community where we only provide them with Job Opportunities & Scholarships
  • USJ + State Alumni data base (Idea By Gabriel)

» USJ has a huge data base that could help us whenever we are in need of anything so first we need to find all state alumni that are either USJ students/alumni or staff so we can merge the data bases together

  • Volunteering at “Mai’idat Al Mahabba” (open kitchen) is postponed due to corona

South Regional Meeting (Second)

08/03/2020 Virtual

  • We are going to target a school in Nabatieh to cooperate with them to do an event (the event is yet to be decided) for their students. We are going to include food or clothes donations in the event (Idea of Sola Oleik).
  • Awareness workshop (topic not decided yet) (Idea of Nizar Abou Ibrahim).
  • We are going to work with a school in Saida in order to establish an English language teaching club for their students. Alumni with public speaking skills and English expertise would be giving the sessions to students (Idea of Hisham Younes and Sarah Hijazi)
  • In addition to the clothes donations that are going to tale place in all regions before Ramadan, it is suggested to add to it food donations as it is Ramadan and helping with food is more critical. (Idea of Sarah Hijazi)
  • Regarding the YES orphanage visits, most likely they are going to be postponed due to bad health circumstances in the country.
  • Replacing the Talent show for orphans, our first event is supposed to be the biking event in Tyre around mid April (before Ramadan). (Idea of Souhaib Moussa)