L&FYouth Against Corruption (YAC) is an initiative which aims to raise awareness about corruption among Lebanese youth, by combining educational materials, innovation and entrepreneurship.
At a time when many young people are leaving the country to seek a better future, YAC wishes to give them hope by shaking things up.
Serena Ibrahim, 29, founder of YAC, architect and management consultant
“The 2015 trash crisis was a turning point for me. The extent of the corruption in the waste management sector became obvious to everyone .
I realized that we couldn’t live that way anymore, it was time to act in order to restore hope for a better future in Lebanon. That year, ten of my closest friends left the country, the vast majority of them because they didn’t have any hope left. I promised myself that I would never lose hope. If the young generation stops dreaming, stops seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, everything will be over.
I was an architect at that time, so I completely reoriented my career and studied sustainable development. I studied abroad (France, Italy, and Brazil), and I chose to do my Master’s thesis on innovative ways to fight corruption : I had met many people who made me see things in a different way and taught me to think outside the box.
I came back to Beirut with my 150-page-thesis and started meeting with youth from different backgrounds to discuss the solutions. People were enthusiastic, it was contagious. That’s how Youth Against Corruption was born at the end 2018.
With YAC, we offer a platform to the Lebanese youth to show them that their voice matters, that they hold their future in their hands. We want to fight corruption in innovative ways by mobilizing young talents, no matter their past and competences. We are focusing on collective intelligence and on a participatory approach to create a sustainable network.
It is working beyond our expectations. More people are getting involved everyday. Sometimes, I even receive phone calls from teenagers who are barely 16 asking me “how can I join?”
Despite the fact that each one of us has a paid job that takes a lot of time, we managed to mobilize and move forward because this project makes us feel alive. The sentence that best describes YAC is : “they believed it was impossible, so they did it”.
At the moment we are working on a “Yacathlon” project against corruption in the Lebanese public administration. More than a hundred youth will be grouped in teams and will develop innovative ways to fight this type of corruption. A jury of experts will choose four winning projects who will have the chance to be fostered in incubators in Lebanon.
Our second major project is “Facade Lebanon”, an online multimedia program on corruption in Lebanon in the water and gas sectors, as well as in the justice system. It is a very ambitious program because corruption is a very complex subject, and we are making sure that it’s accessible to teenagers, even though it’s taught by professors who normally teach master’s students. Our main goal is the integration of this course in the Lebanese universities curriculum in the future.
When we heard of Omdi, a support program launched by the makesense incubator, the French Institute, and the French Embassy, we said , “why not?”
We had already worked with makesense before, we love their spirit, share the same values, and the same ambition. We were sure to learn a lot from their experience in order to grow.
In the long run, our goal is to turn YAC into a mobilization platform for youth around the world because corruption is international.”
How do you fight against corruption?
“ It’s very hard to fight against corruption at your own personal level. You need to start slow, and be aware that you can’t change a country in one day.
The idea is to stick to your values: for example, by refusing ‘wasta’ or by not abusing your position of privilege to get something done.
But mainly, you need a structural change at a national level.
The first step is to get an independent judiciary system that holds power accountable, and to include awareness campaigns in the schools curriculum, in order to educate the youth about corruption.
And you need a public entity that acts in a totally transparent way on all matters related to budgets, public bids, public jobs, and which protects whistleblowers.
In short, you need a change in the values in public institutions: they need to become centered around law, integrity and transparency.”
Omdi is a program financed by the French Institute of Lebanon and the French Embassy, in partnership with makesense incubator. It supports 15 projects made by young people in Lebanon that aim to solve a social and environmental problem.
Walid and Christina joined YAC in its early days. They are part of the “core team” made up of 25 people who manage the project.
They talk about why they chose to fight corruption.
Walid Baroud, Automotive engineer, 28, member of YAC coordination team
“I remember very clearly the first time I truly understood what corruption means. I was in the ninth grade and was taking my official exams. Before leaving to do my exam, my father told me : “Today you will be confronted with the Lebanese government”.
Official exams in grade nine are difficult. You work hard for an entire year. When you arrive at the exam center though, nothing makes sense. Everyone cheats and supervisors turn a blind eye. Some people are even paid to take the exam for someone else. It’s crazy. Everyone in Lebanon knows about this.
That’s why I joined YAC. Because it is through youth that we will be able to change things.
Personally, I left Lebanon five years ago for work reasons, but also because I completely lost faith in my country. I have a whatsapp group with my old classmates. Of the group’s 16 members, only one remained in Lebanon at the end of 2019.
In a certain way, YAC reconciles me with my country. Its main strength is to be able to aggregate desires beyond Lebanese borders. I can contribute as much while working from France as I would if I were in Beirut. Our structure is very different from other big enterprises which have a fixed and pyramidal structure, like the one I work for. At YAC, we work together, grow together, we don’t have a hierarchy. In a big company you might not feel like you’re changing the world, , at YAC, you surely do. ”
*Christina Elias, 26, economist, member of the YAC coordination team
“Where does this urge to fight corruption come from? I think it started when I was still an economics student.
One time, we were debating the various economic reforms to apply in Lebanon, and our professor said something that stuck with me : “politics and economics are two faces of the same coin”.
No matter how hard we think about how to get our finances in order, all these efforts are in vain if we are dealing with a corrupt political class. This is what motivates me to be committed today.
I joined YAC after finishing my master’s degree in development in the UK because I needed to shake things up in my country. YAC helped me realize that even at my own level, I am able to make things better in my country. I took on more and more responsibilities in the organisation before joining the coordination team.
Today, we have approximately 850 “Yactivist”, young people, between 18 and 34 years old, who are mobilized. We have as many girls as we have boys. Seeing the community grow makes us stronger. “
#GSC this post is sponsored by Omdi