Skill-building for Unemployed Youth in Lebanon

Dear Supporters,

We've been working on something very exciting over the past few months... an event in Beirut on October 3rd that will feature inspiring stories of Nawaya's youth, mentors, volunteers, and members of the community, each of whom will be sharing personal details of their lives, the challenges they have faced, and how they overcame them.

In addition, our youth will be providing the entertainment and will be showcasing their talents to the audience.  The social space will provide the opportunity for the audience and guests to interact with and network with our youth.

We are grateful for Patchi's ongoing support since January 2015, and would like to also thank our other sponsors, including Dunkin Donuts, Virgin Radio Lebanon, Maliks Bookshop, and Toastmasters.

To stay updated about the event, make sure to check out the event page here.

We hope many of you can join us on Saturday, October 3rd!  For those of you outside of Lebanon, stay tuned for the videos of the talks, which will be uploaded soon after the event.

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In other Nawaya news, our youth engaged in an exciting community service activity in June whereby they beautified their neighborhood by painting up a bridge.  Check out some photos below.

Nawaya was also represented at the Start-Up Lebanon Conference in New York in May, as well as in Kurdistan during a social entrepreneurship training whereby we shared our experience with Iraqi and Kurdish women. 

Just recently, one of our supporters and volunteers, Abir Hanna, climbed Machu Picchu for us in Peru and raised over $5000 for our youth.

We have big and exciting changes coming up in the next few months, which will enable us to reach hundreds more youth in 2016.  Thanks as always for your continued support, and stay tuned!

Dear Supporters,

Over the past 3 months, we've had some great developments which we'd like to share with you:

-- Our talented fashion designer, Nadeen, has been hired to instruct Khaldoun, a younger aspiring designer in our program.  They have been meeting for several hours each month, and Khaldoun's talent is blossoming!

-- A group of high school students from a fashion club in New Jersey heard about Nadeen and decided to hold a fundraiser to help cover her monthly tuition!

-- Hovsep, our violinist, had the opportunity to perform at a UNESCO event as well as with the Lebanese National Conservatory recently; he also now has 4 students whom he is instructing!

-- Omar, our football star, got the opportunity to join an intensive football training program led by the coaches of Real Madrid at the American University of Beirut!

-- Pierre and Rawad, both aspiring actors, took a workshop with leading director Lucien Bourjeily; Pierre also got to audition for a feature film and he was selected for a role!

-- Rana has been continuing to create mosaics with the support of Handmade by Raja, and sold several of her pieces at a Mother's Day exhibition at Dar Bistro and Books cafe in Hamra recently.

-- We gathered 25 of our youth to attend a professional networking session at AltCity where they shared their dreams and aspirations, and received support and feedback from guests.

-- We have plans to launch a tech program for youth to get them involved in coding, robotics, and engineering in a hands-on, interactive environment -- stay tuned for updates in the coming months!

We have many more upcoming plans and events for the summer, so we'll be sure to share them with you during our next report.

Have a great summer and thank you for your continued support!