Share Heather Murphy & Stacey Ramirez visit to Lebanon

It was really nice to meet Stacey & Heather our program officers at IIE SF in Lebanon.

After their arrival to Lebanon, we visited Mrs. Wafaa Abed, the president of IPW (Institute of Progressive Women). Mrs. Abed introduced the NGO's activities & programs, especially the law that had been approved from the parliament and which allows women to open bank accounts for their children. Mrs. Abed mentioned the importance of social media in promoting their NGO, as they are now working on a new law (Women’s right & gender discrimination). IPW is very active on social media,it has 2 Facebook pages: one for the NGO & the other is created especially to promote Made@Home activities.

The next day, we had the emediat supplemental workshop @ Amel association on online offline Media with Wadih Tueini (Annahar) & Branding with Milad Hadchiti. It was an interesting educational workshop as participants learned how to brand their NGOs realizing the importance of making sure to have branding as an essential part of their organization’s communication plan. Participants from Tripoli & Beirut were very glad to meet Heather & Stacey.

Day in Tripoli

It was a great long day; we had a round table
@It Lebanonwith e-mediat Lebanonparticipants
 who shared their experiences & their online
presence achievements, challenges & future needs.

Heather & Stacey had the chance to visit Prime Minister Najib Mikati & suggested to have a social media strategy all over Lebanon.

After that, we had site visits to Safadi Foundation, Azem & Saade & Islamic Student Association whereby the participants talked about their projects, achievements & their online presence after participating in emediat program.

SMEX Barcamp

we attended also with some of our participants SMEX BarCamp @AUB. It was a new experience as the concept of BarCamp is an ad-hoc gathering emerging from the people’s desire to share info and learn in an open environment. It was an intense event with discussions, demos & interaction from attendees. NGOs & other society sectors attended & benefited from the various workshops that all are on social media topics. In addition, the activity was a great networking opportunity.

We visited Minister of Information Walid Daouk with a recommendation from Prime Minister Mikati and we discussed using of social media tools to increase and raise awareness in the community. He was very responsive and expressed his willingness to cooperate through the official TV, Radio & website.

 Stacey & Heather were impressed by Adyan’s online presence while visiting them at their new office. Adyan is very active in using social media & they were the 1st NGO participating in e-mediat training to hire a social media officer.