The opening ceremony for the 2021–2022 iteration of the English Access Microscholarship Program in Lebanon took place via Zoom on Sunday, April 25. Attendees included Access students and alumni; teachers; school administrators; parents; and representatives from Teach For Lebanon (TFL), the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, the U.S. Embassy in Amman, and the Ministry of Education and Higher Education (MEHE) – all in all, over 400 people tuned in!

The ceremony opened with a word from Kristina Hayden, public affairs officer at the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, followed by speeches from Salyne El Samarani, TFL’s CEO, and Fadi Yarak, MEHE’s director general. Then came testimonials from Access alumni (Wael Riman, Cohort 6; Mirna Ghemawi, Cohort 5; Lara Mada, Cohort 5; Matthew Francis, Cohort 2; Eliane Aoun, cohort 3) on their experiences of the program and their personal, academic, and professional journeys since graduating. Next George El Assad, director of the Access program, spoke as well. At this point Access students memorialized the event by turning on their cameras and proudly displaying their Access certificates for a group screenshot. 

The first Access Alumni training was held virtually on December 12, 2020, and focused (at the request of the participants) on “women empowerment”. The 30 Access Alumni who participated were welcomed before the sessions by Kristina Hayden, the US Embassy’s Public Affairs Officer. After the first session, the alumni were also joined by Edith Bitar, the US Embassy’s Cultural Affairs Coordinator.

When asked about the overall rating of the training session, the results of the exit survey conducted at the end of the workshop indicated that around 90% of attendees were satisfied with the Women Empowerment Training. One participant, Eva Boumjahed noted that "Training for parents is needed to protect the girls today from early marriage, we as youth need to work on changing the laws tomorrow" which points at the impact of education in policy reforms that we aspire to foster in our society today.

If you are an Access Alumni and would like to take part in future trainings, please reach out to [email protected]