In light of the crisis triggered by the spread of the coronavirus, the youth, students and new graduates in Lebanon have led most volunteering initiatives aimed at raising awareness and helping the population to adhere to home quarantine, in addition to offering support to hospitals and the health sector. If the most appropriate form of promoting the concept of citizenship and protecting the community from the virus is manifested in self-quarantine, youth initiatives on community service fall within the scope of this group’s dynamism necessary for action and momentum needed for free volunteering, as well as their access to the means of communication, both traditional and remote, to disseminate initiatives and attract attention, while counting on the bodily structure and immunity of the young group in fighting the virus.
By outdoing the associations' and ministries' organized work in handling the successive crises that Lebanon is going through, individual and collective youth and student initiatives in particular demonstrate the ability of this group of people to provide a model that is closest to the concept of citizenship with what it means in terms of belonging to the homeland or nation. The youth volunteering initiatives, whether during the recent coronavirus spread crisis, the fires that erupted prior to the October 17 uprising, or during the uprising itself, demonstrate the willingness of young people to overcome the identity, regional, and sectarian boundaries drawn since the civil war in Lebanon, as well as the youth ability to overcome the problems of exercising their rights political and voting rights in their place of residence, their relationship with the geographical space, especially in Beirut, the capital, and their ability to overcome the problem of multipartisan and multisectarian affiliations that shape the identity of every Lebanese citizen.
Among the political, economic and cultural dimensions of citizenship, perhaps its social dimension, as related to behavior among individuals in society reflecting a measure of loyalty and solidarity, is the most achieved dimension in Lebanon. This dimension intersects with the seventh level developed by Roger Hart on youth participation in carrying national responsibilities, and requires the guidance of young people regarding the decisions, projects and ideas they initiate, while calling on adults to provide them with the necessary support, even without their interference. Examples of youth participation in volunteering initiatives to fight the coronavirus nationwide abound, including the launching of initiatives and awareness campaigns on social media, as some of them have created pages to raise awareness about the virus and ways to prevent it. Dozens of young people in Beirut and various areas have also volunteered for free home delivery services by posting their phone numbers to ensure order delivery, with the aim of encouraging citizens to stay home, adhere to quarantine, and avoid store crowding. The volunteers have formed groups that share experience about available prevention methods, including masks, gloves and sanitizing materials, and have asked the Lebanese Red Cross to train volunteers.
The pluralism and diversity model at the Lebanese University (LU) as a gateway to the achievement of citizenship has been demonstrated in the role played by its students in their adoption of a proactive approach to volunteering to fight the virus. Medical students of the LU, in addition to students from Beirut Arab University (BAU), have volunteered for rotating in the coronavirus ward at the Rafic Hariri University Hospital, which is the main center that receives patients and offers them free testing and isolation. For their part, students of the Faculty of Public Health at the LU and its alumni, as well as nurses, have announced that they volunteer to visit homes to serve patients with chronic diseases. Chemistry students at the LU have also launched an initiative to disinfect stores in coordination with medical students, with the aim of helping owners of small and medium-sized stores disinfect them.
The shortage of respiratory devices in hospitals in different countries has prompted a number of engineering students and graduates to launch a “Breather for all Lebanon” initiative, with the aim of producing artificial respiration ventilators. The initiative, which turned into a crisis cell involving more than 270 experts in various fields, was endorsed by the Ministry of Industry, and now involves the production of respiratory devices from the materials available in the market, the collection of existing devices and repairing them. An online platform has also been launched to develop prototypes of respirators, smart thermometers and protective masks. An initiative has also been undertaken by a team of engineers and IT programmers to develop an application that links people with delivery outlets and facilitates online access to them in their residential area.