World Youth Day celebrated in Beirut

Rana Bitar is the director of the “Enwan” program for media empowerment of Arab youth. Regarding the occasion she stated: “the world stands today, especially the Arab world, at a crossroads. The political transformations in Arab countries and youth movements leave the younger generation with a difficult choice between changing the present and working for the future and securing the most basic economic needs of living. Yet the youth prove everyday that they are aware of these strategies and that they are capable of taking leadership, but are they allowed to? The youth's demands are many and the ability to express them and effect a change is there but to what extent are youth able to express their views?” She added that “RASIT (Royal Academy of Science International Trust) believes that the young must be given all possible opportunities to take part in decision making as partners in developing societies. The organisation was able to provide a space for young people to express them selves and they in turn proved that they are the leaders of today and tomorrow and proved their ability to provide development programs if they have the means to. There is a need to make changes, and this doesn’t happen through ignoring but through understanding and work. That’s why RASIT picked the slogan “What do you know about me?” The main goal of this meeting is cross generation dialogue to break the barriers, open up and move away from criticising each other as two generations of different thinking.” Following a small film about the organisation and its achievements in Lebanon and another one about the Adress radio program, the CEO of the organisation Princess, PhD Nisreen Al-Hashimi referred to “a huge gap between generations.”