On May 3, five students from the Lyçée Franco-Libanais of Nahr Ibrahim, and one scholar from the American University of Beirut (AUB) will be organizing a conference at the Amphitheater of the school in Nahr Ibrahim.
The main purpose of organizing this conference is to explore the issues around global warming- mainly the damages caused by the human race, and how to prevent further generations from making the same mistakes.
What inspired and motivated the students to initiate this event was the movement created by teenage environmental activist Greta Thunberg, ‘Fridays For Future’ that caused the biggest protest on climate change in the world. It took place on March 15, 2019 across 93 different countries, including Lebanon. Before that date, Thunberg inspired rounds of protests the world over when she began weekly sit-ins outside Stockholm's Parliament House with her "school strike for climate" sign in August 2018. Since then, the movement--‘Fridays For Future’-- sees students skip school on Fridays and instead take to the streets to demand action on climate change.
Yet the March demonstration, in which the students of Lyçee Franco-Libanais of Nahr Ibrahim took part, gave them the feeling of being able to make a difference and change people’s perspectives on the matter at hand.
Hence the idea of this conference, as the students also plan on starting their own movement called: #onetaskaweek. It is a movement that asks the individuals to take action by actively do something for the environment and share it on different social media sites to spread awareness and encourage other people to follow suit.
This is the first time that these students of Lyçée Franco-Libanais embark in such an event, let alone orrganize a conference, but they have proven competent in the past, since they took part in the Model United Nations and as a team, and have won many awards.
