On Tuesday, April 6th, the University of Balamand launched a student chapter affiliated with the LEWAP (LEbanese Water Actors Platform), which is a Lebanese advocacy platform concerned with spreading awareness on the management of water resources and wastewater sector in Lebanon, “to become the first university in Lebanon to launch this branch”.

The LEWAP platform was established in 2017 through the initiative of the Eau-Solidarité program. It is a platform for information exchange and sharing of experiences between stakeholders in the water and wastewater sector in Lebanon.

The student chapter will provide several services to help students and members as it provides many opportunities to enable students to build basic skills in the field of water usage and to manage this resource sustainably, as well as to provide social activities to enhance communication between students.

Vice President for Internationalization and Engagement and Dean of the Faculty of Engineering, Professor Rami Abboud, underlined the need and necessity for undertaking projects for community service, in order to enhance the continuous response efforts to support projects and applied research in water and wastewater management. He assured UOB relentless support to local communities and to engage with them for the greater good of public welfare and safeguard water resources.

As for the Dean of Student Affairs, Dr. Walid Moubayed, he stressed the importance of the student experience at the university, to develop students' skills assuring the university's full support of such initiatives.

Among the attendees was Vincent Dussaux , Deputy Director of Solidarité Eau (pS-Eau), a non-governmental organization in France specializing in international cooperation in the water and sanitation sector. Mr. Dussaux is the Supervisor of Water Resources Management Projects and Director of the LEWAP Platform in Lebanon. He presented “projects that could be undertaken to achieve development goals”.

In turn, Dr. Yasmine Jabali, lecturer at the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Balamand and the student chapter advisor, spoke about “the role that this student club will play in the processing and dissemination of information related to water and sanitation in Lebanon”.

A graduate of the Environmental Sciences Department at the University of Balamand and LEWAP coordinator Jasmine Al-Kareh spoke about the program’s objectives in spreading knowledge and exchanging experiences among the various stakeholders in the water and wastewater sector in Lebanon, such as local authorities, civil society organizations, local and international NGOs, public institutions, research centers, universities, and the private sector. ​