A course on writing journalistic portraits at the French Institute of Lebanon, in Jounieh. (Credit: Yomkom)
Aged between 14 and 16 years, 84 students from 28 private French-speaking Lebanese program schools took on the role of a journalist for an article, with the task of painting in French the portrait of a person who developed a civic initiative in their region. This project allowed students from all regions of the country to practice the French language, which they rarely use outside their school, to show creativity and demonstrate that even amid the crisis in Lebanon since 2019, citizens are still pushing forward initiatives on their own.
"Engaged Pens, Lebanese Youth Express Themselves!" is the title of this project carried out by the French Institute of Lebanon (IFL), in partnership with the adolescent media platform Yomkom, the Lebanese Academy of Fine Arts (ALBA) and L'Orient-Le Jour, as well as with funding from ALAM (Lebanon's Better Future Association) and the think tank Change Lebanon. In total, these groups of students wrote 27 portraits, all published on Yomkom, accompanied by illustrations and photos by ALBA students. The participants were first trained in the techniques of journalistic portrait writing by six journalists from L'Orient-Le Jour. Then, after preparing their interviews, the students embarked on the task supported by their French teachers and the guidance of journalists despite fears of making mistakes, language difficulties and the task's novelty.
3 portraits published by L'Orient-Le Jour
"At first, I was afraid to write in French. I thought the difficulty was insurmountable. As a Lebanese baccalaureate student, I had never had such a challenge outside of school. In the end, it was a great experience for my classmates and me. We continue to write today for Yomkom," said Sarah Salloum, who was in 10th grade at Notre-Dame des Apôtres School in Qabb Elias in the Bekaa, during the project's implementation in the 2023-2024 school year. "I had a blast! And yet, I wondered several times if I knew how to do it," said Julia Idriss, a student at As-Safir High School in Ghazieh, southern Lebanon.
"I was stressed before the interview with Nizar Hani, director of the Chouf Cedar Reserve, whose portrait we had to write. He is so well-known in our region due to his commitment to environmental protection! But it went very well. The only major difficulty was translating his words from Arabic into French," said Adam Kerbaj, a student at Al-Marj School in Baakline, in the Chouf. Hani is now the Agriculture Minister in Nawaf Salam's government.
"The initiative of the IFL aimed to encourage Lebanese youth to express themselves," Ludovic Zmitrowicz, French cooperation attaché, told L'Orient-Le Jour. The 28 schools were selected based on their cooperation with the institute, "with five schools per region [Jounieh, Tripoli, Akkar, Zgharta, Koura, Minieh, Baalbeck, Qabb Elias, Zahle, Rayak, Chouf, Baabda, Saida, Sour and Nabatieh] and three in Beirut," he said. "This project was proposed to Lebanese Francophone curriculum schools, labeled as LFE or CELF," said Alexandre Khouri, deputy director of the IFL, Jounieh branch. "These are schools that the IFL is keen to support, to invigorate Francophonie and stimulate students," he added.
L'Orient-Le Jour published three portraits: Nizar Hani's, Amal Chebli and Dina Sidani. All were selected at the end of last summer, before the large-scale Israeli military operation in southern Lebanon and the Bekaa on Monday, Sept. 23, 2023, and the extensive war between Hezbollah and Israel that followed until Nov. 27, 2024.
As part of Francophonie Month, the written and photographed portraits will be exhibited at ALBA starting March 14, with the opening at 3:30 p.m. in the presence of the French Ambassador, Hervé Magro. The exhibition was initially supposed to take place in November 2024, following the Francophonie Summit held in France on Oct. 4 and 5, 2024, but circumstances in Lebanon decided otherwise. The event, open to the general public, aims to spark vocation.
This article was translated from L'Orient-Le Jour.
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