Elie, a young lawyer and political activist affiliated with the Phalangist Party, never imagined that a simple training session would reshape his outlook on public policy. In November 2024, amid the war on Lebanon, he was invited to attend a disaster management training organized by FDCD. At first, he didn’t expect much—just another workshop he was interested in, he thought.
During one of the sessions, Elie uncovered a major gap in Lebanon’s disaster management policies. Until then, he had never grasped the full complexity of the subject—its legal, international, and social dimensions, or how profoundly underdeveloped Lebanon’s approach to it was. The training didn’t just inform him; it challenged him. It opened his eyes to an area that had been largely invisible in his activism and legal work.
“I never realized how critical and yet neglected disaster management was in Lebanon until I participated in this training,” Elie later said. “It provided me with the tools to understand the international framework and helped me identify the gaps in Lebanon’s approach.”
Motivated by what he’d learned, Elie took his newfound knowledge further. While attending a program on displacement at the University of Saint Joseph, he applied the framework and insights from the training to draft a policy brief, advocating for the integration of disaster management into national planning—particularly in relation to displacement, a growing crisis in Lebanon.
To his surprise, during his research, Elie discovered that Pierre Gemayel, the former Phalangist leader, had once drafted a disaster management law that was never enacted. This piece of forgotten history struck a personal chord.
“This discovery filled me with pride,” he reflected. “It was a powerful moment that connected my political heritage to my professional journey. It made me realize that meaningful change often starts with what we choose to see—and what we choose to act on.”
What started as a training I didn’t expect much from has now turned into real policy action
Elie, a young lawyer and political activist affiliated with the Phalangist Party, never imagined that a simple training session would reshape his outlook on public policy. In November 2024, amid the war on Lebanon, he was invited to attend a disaster management training organized by FDCD. At first, he didn’t expect much—just another workshop he was interested in, he thought.
During one of the sessions, Elie uncovered a major gap in Lebanon’s disaster management policies. Until then, he had never grasped the full complexity of the subject—its legal, international, and social dimensions, or how profoundly underdeveloped Lebanon’s approach to it was. The training didn’t just inform him; it challenged him. It opened his eyes to an area that had been largely invisible in his activism and legal work.
“I never realized how critical and yet neglected disaster management was in Lebanon until I participated in this training,” Elie later said. “It provided me with the tools to understand the international framework and helped me identify the gaps in Lebanon’s approach.”
Motivated by what he’d learned, Elie took his newfound knowledge further. While attending a program on displacement at the University of Saint Joseph, he applied the framework and insights from the training to draft a policy brief, advocating for the integration of disaster management into national planning—particularly in relation to displacement, a growing crisis in Lebanon.
To his surprise, during his research, Elie discovered that Pierre Gemayel, the former Phalangist leader, had once drafted a disaster management law that was never enacted. This piece of forgotten history struck a personal chord.
“This discovery filled me with pride,” he reflected. “It was a powerful moment that connected my political heritage to my professional journey. It made me realize that meaningful change often starts with what we choose to see—and what we choose to act on.”
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