LOST’s Strategy for 2022-2025

This strategy aims at achieving the goals and objectives that directly targets youth, women, and underprivileged families and individuals and those below the poverty line. Therefore, it contributes to the empowerment of women and their participation in political and social life and the economic cycle and aims to enhance the youth’s ability to earn a living and promote them as active citizens and positive catalysts. The strategy also tries to grant LOST the opportunity to support local partners (Local government and CSOs). Goal achievement is not done separately, but systematically and in accordance with a plan that bases on addressing several issues at the same time (Strategic Planning Issues-Based) and submitting a successful development model to achieve the desired objectives with the lowest cost, time and effort, and ensure the sustainability of human and natural resources.

This plan represents a work program that aims to assess the dignity and security of the citizen and the prosperity of the nation and seeks through its strategy to change the reality for the better, invest the problems to create opportunities and consider the available capabilities. The program will focus on four interrelated elements: Livelihood, Youth and Women Empowerment, Social Cohesion, and Good Governance, in addition to activating cooperation and humanitarian activities which is a continuous sector of intervention for LOST.

Improving Living Conditions and Developing Economic Capabilities

For the practical way of dealing with human rights and the maintenance of a healthy society free from violence and delinquency, the economic capabilities of individuals must be improved as well as their living conditions. This will positively affect society since the greater the capacity and income of an individual are, then, the greater the production in society is. So, it’s fruitful to invest these capabilities by:

  • Capacitating youth and encouraging them to work well and improve their performance in order to create jobs.
  • Developing technical, professional, and managerial capacities in the productive sectors such as agriculture
  • Establishing and managing institutions by the organization to create sustainable jobs.
  • Creating additional jobs through securing sources of alternative energy programs and protecting water resources with wastewater treatment.
  • Supporting the creation of new startups and social enterprises and the development and capacitating of existing MSMEs

Youth and Women Empowerment and Support

The importance of youth and women in society lies with them being strong agents of change and having the ability to impact all the sectors they are involved in. This makes them an integral part in LOST interventions and sectors. LOST is supporting youth and women through:

  • Capacitating youth and women on technical skills needed to improve their access to the market 
  • Developing the youth and women’s engagement in their communities 
  • Creating bridges and connections between the different youth and women to share resources and expand benefits
  • Improving youth and women’s life skills capacities to emerge as community leaders

Building and Strengthening Civil Peace

Civil peace is an essential condition for providing an environment conducive to social development. It is also a key indicator in measuring development and progress. Therefore, implementing projects that contribute to the development of civil peace is necessary. For this, LOST works on:

  • Increasing capacity through conflict resolution training.
  • Developing concepts of conflict’s causes and solutions and disseminating successful experiences.
  • Communicating with decision-makers and training them (municipalities – Mukhtar – security forces).
  • Developing local organizations and strengthening bonds among them to promote the concept of conflict resolution.
  • Developing the workers’ capacities, especially those dealing with conflicts and conducting field exercises.
  • Life skills training in schools, universities and marginalized areas.
  • Using the arts to spread the idea of ​​civil peace.
  • Using social networking sites in a positive way.
  • Creating a social framework capable of solving conflicts and developing the capacities of the local committees and creating a network between them and the municipalities.
  • Establishment of clubs for entertainment and civil peace.
  • Establishment of projects to meet the needs of the conflicting parties.

Promote Governance and Involve People

A good governance provides the existence of stable circumstances resulting from its foundations between the citizen and the local authority, which results in effective social relations that contribute to enhancing the developmental roles of both citizens and decision makers. So that the relation between the citizen and the authority is in need to:

  • Educating and training citizens and groups (civil society) and activating their social relations in a productive development way.
  • Empowering marginalized groups of individuals and groups to enhance participation and strengthen the ability to held accountability.
  • Empowering public administrations and institutions to improve public services and optimize the use of resources to respond to people’s needs in a better way.

Activating Cooperation and Humanitarian Activities

Human rights include moral principles or social norms that describe the development of human behavior as they are fundamental rights that cannot be infringed, due and unique to each person. For this, LOST should:

  • Execute Rapid Response Interventions responding to the crisis-related urgent needs
  • Undertake awareness campaigns for women and activate their role in society within human rights.
  • Sensitize both social groups and local authorities to promote the concept of human rights.
  • Expand and develop the services provided to Lebanese host communities and displaced Syrians to protect their rights to a dignified life

©2017 The Lebanese Organization for Studies and Training - by Nassim Dirany