Participants hailed from Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, Iraq, Tunisia and Egypt, with varying levels of skill and expertise. They were allowed to share experiences and work on individual and group projects throughout the course of the workshop.
“The internet will be a transformative force in the years to come. The workshop was motivated by the need for activists in the region to work more closely together, and to think strategically about their role in the exciting changes taking place around us”, said FNF’s Nareg Aslanian, himself a social media enthusiast and the foundation’s project team member in charge of social media projects in the Mashrek.
“From what I’ve seen and learned here, I can tell you that I will start my own blog tomorrow!” said Lebanese journalism student Yara Al-Asmar.
While the foundation has been organizing workshops and conferences around this topic for several years, the latest workshop in Beirut marks the beginning of a more comprehensive FNF-supported program to develop internet activism in the Mashrek region.
“The workshop represents a huge step forward for FNF’s digital activism efforts in the Middle East. Not only the participants, but also we have learned a lot from this workshop. As a foundation, we look forward to build on this experience and on supporting this network of digital activists in the future,” said Ralf Erbel, FNF Resident Representative in Jordan and for Lebanon, Syria and Iraq.
