The ACCESS-MENA project held a workshop entitled, "Towards a Lebanon without Child Labor" coinciding with the World Day against Child Labor. The workshop was conducted on June 12 at the Crowne Plaza hotel in Beirut and was carried out in the spirit of working to advance the efforts to combat exploitive child labor through education.

The event was organized by AMIDEAST and Rene Mouawad Foundation. With 35 participants from governmental and non-governmental organizations from throughout Lebanon in attendance, the workshop's goal was to consolidate recommendations drafted during the "First Regional Conference on Child Labor and Education" held in Cairo, Egypt in February 2008 and recommendations and strategies already established in the country from various agencies and projects into one document.

Liesbeth Zonnefeld, the director of the project from CHF International welcomed everybody and said "the project has worked for four years in Lebanon and partnered with more than 40 NGOs, the Higher Council for Childhood, Ministry of Education and Higher Education, Ministry of Labor and Ministry of Social Affairs and has produced a large body of knowledge on how to fight child labor in Lebanon." Nicole Eid Abu-Haydar, manager of the regional component at AMIDEAST/Lebanon, opened the workshop with a moment of silence asking the participants to imagine a working child and "keep this image in front of your eyes today as we focus our work on finding solutions for these children." Dr. Nada Mneimneh, head of the Education Development Project at the Ministry of Education and Higher Education recommended that the participants consolidated all of the done by NGOs in Lebanon and make effective and operative recommendations at three levels: short, medium and long term." Ms. Nazha Shallita, Head of the Child Labor unit at the Ministry of Labor talked about the National Steering Committee on Combating Child Labor in Lebanon and recommended that that the national committee and the child labor unit need a strong implementation plan with enough funds to actualize the goals. Dr. Elie Mikhael, the Secretary General of the Higher Council for Childhood, presented the achievements of the council and highlighted the recommendations they are working on including training the teachers nationwide on alternatives to punishment in schools, banning all laws that endorse violence in schools. Hasna Mouwad and Dalia al Zayni from RMF presented the impressive achievements of ACCESS-MENA in Lebanon over the last four years and recommended the quality education program for working children in literacy, vocational training and for drop-outs and special remedial education developed by the project could be used nationwide and help to develop further programs and expedite reaching children working in exploitive child labor.

The participants then held roundtable discussions to refine all the recommendations in hand. Click here to read the final document.