Students Build Bridges Through Community Engagement

Several departments at AUB joined forces to conduct a summer camp for students so they could gain hands-on experience while undertaking community service. The camp, which started on August 20, ran until August 30.

About sixty students volunteered in villages in South Lebanon (Sour, Bint Jbeil, and Nabatiyeh regions) to work on various projects in landscape design, architecture/urban design, IT/computer education, and civil/construction engineering while also participating in the social/cultural activities of the villages.

"The feedback from both the students and the communities was extremely positive," said Professor Mounir Mabsout, the coordinator of the program and the director of the Center for Civic Engagement and Community Service at AUB, one of the sponsors of the program.

The summer camp program started in 2006, just before the outbreak of the July war between Israel and Lebanon and initially had targeted only civil engineering students. This year's participation rate increased fourfold, and the camp attracted students from all departments within the Faculty of Engineering and Architecture.

The camp was organized and funded by various AUB departments and centers. Also joining AUB were two NGOs-Beit bil Jnoub and UN-Habitat-in addition to a number of municipalities from participating villages.

"Students applied on the ground what they learned in the classroom," said Khaled Joujou, a lab manager at Computer Engineering and a supervisor at the camp. "They also learned how to deal with different cultures and societies. In return, the communities really appreciated the fact that AUB students took ten days off to spend time with them. The end result was a lot of cultural exchange and discovering a common ground that brings people together despite their differences."

In order to encourage this cultural exchange, the camp partnered with villagers to offer meals to students. "With the camp's support, the families would cook meals for the students at their homes, which encouraged a two-way interaction between the students and the local families," said Joujou.

The camp was so successful that villagers signed up for activities in larger numbers than expected. "For instance, we were expecting 15 students to sign up for a computer skills training workshop in one of the villages, but 120 showed up and still counting!!" said Joujou.

In addition to the engineering services, AUB students also volunteered in social and environmental activities, conducted clean-ups, planted trees, and challenged the village kids to hearty games of volley-ball and football.