Beirut Arab University’s Off-Campus Educational Outreach

Beirut Arab University (BAU) has actively engaged in educational outreach beyond its campuses over the past five years. These initiatives range from one-off workshops and lectures in the community, to structured long-term programs in partnership with schools and local institutions, as well as student-led volunteer schemes. Below we outline key examples in each category, noting the target audience, objectives, and whether they are ad hoc (occasional) or programmed (regular/ongoing):

Ad Hoc Outreach Activities (One-off Workshops & Lectures)

• UNESCO “MOST School” Youth Workshop (2019) – Ad hoc: In March 2019 BAU co-hosted a three-day workshop in partnership with UNESCO and the Hariri Foundation, as part of UNESCO’s Management of Social Transformations (MOST) program iau-hesd.net. The event, held at BAU but open to external participants, focused on “Youth Civic Engagement and Public Policies for Urban Governance through Cultural Heritage.” It featured tailored lectures and training sessions aimed at young researchers and community youth leaders, sharing policy research methods and best practices to empower youth in promoting social inclusion via cultural heritage iau-hesd.net. This was a one-time capacity-building event bringing together university experts and youth from the community.
• “Youth-Led” Children’s Workshop in Karantina (2021) – Ad hoc: As part of post-disaster community support, BAU organized a one-day workshop on May 18, 2021 for 30 children in Karantina Park, near the Beirut port blast site iau-hesd.net. In collaboration with UNESCO, UNFPA, UNODC and the NGO Himaya, BAU faculty (Architecture & Design) ran an interactive session to help children emotionally process the 2020 Beirut explosion. The workshop engaged kids (target age ~6–14) in educational play – building their “own neighborhood” on game-board maps and exploring models of Beirut heritage buildings – as a coping strategy and to teach basic concepts of architecture and community planning archive.iau-hesd.netarchive.iau-hesd.net. This was a one-off, tailored outreach event held off-campus in a community space, designed to support and educate local children through creative engagement.
• Community Health and Environment Workshops – Ad hoc: BAU faculties have occasionally delivered awareness workshops in local communities and schools on pressing issues. For example, in June 2021 BAU’s Tripoli Campus (Faculty of Health Sciences, with the BAU Entrepreneurs Hub) held a “Family Disaster Plan” workshop for high-school students and families on emergency preparedness (teaching practical steps for family safety during crises). Around the same time, a “Waste Management” workshop was conducted in Tripoli to educate youth on recycling and solid waste practices. These one-time seminars in community venues or schools were targeted at teenagers and the general public, aiming to raise awareness on public health and environmental responsibility (as part of BAU’s outreach mission iau-hesd.net). (Sources: BAU Annual Report 2021; Tripoli Campus News, June 2021)

Note: BAU also holds an annual “Open Doors” event on campus (inviting secondary school students to visit BAU for program orientations), but the focus here is on off-campus outreach.

Programmed Outreach Programs & Partnerships (Recurring or Long-Term)

• Teacher Training Partnership with Schools (2025) – Programmed: In 2025, BAU formalized cooperation agreements with three Lebanese schools – Lebanese International School, Al-Iman Schools (Islamic Education Society), and Ahliah School – to launch an ongoing teacher-training and student development program com. Under these agreements, BAU’s Faculty of Human Sciences (Education) sends its teaching-diploma students and faculty into partner schools to train and mentor school students and teachers. The collaboration entails recurring activities: BAU student-teachers attend supervised training classes at the schools, and the partners jointly organize workshops, educational activities, conferences, seminars, and field visits for mutual learning fliphtml5.com. There is also exchange of expertise between BAU professors and the school teachers, with the ultimate goal of enhancing teaching skills and curricula. This is a structured, long-term program – BAU students gain practical experience while the schools benefit from up-to-date pedagogical training (notably, graduates of the BAU training program are given hiring priority at those schools) fliphtml5.comfliphtml5.com.
• “Our City, Our Way” Youth Urban Project (2018–2019) – Programmed (project-based): An example of a multi-session outreach program was “Our City: Our Way”, a joint initiative by BAU’s Tripoli campus with the Safadi Cultural Foundation and Al-Mina Municipality (funded by EU’s SouthMed CV) iau-hesd.net. Over several months, BAU faculty and students worked with 30 local youth (teens and young adults from Tripoli), training them in urban design, cartography, model-making, and proposal writing iau-hesd.net. Through a series of workshops and cultural training sessions, the youths were empowered to assess their city’s needs and eventually design and implement their own “child-friendly city” model for a public space in Al-Mina iau-hesd.net. BAU architects and the municipality provided guidance and shared the implementation work (e.g. installing street furniture, playgrounds, lighting and façade improvements in the neighborhood) iau-hesd.net. This program, while time-bound to the project, was programmatic in nature – it had a structured curriculum of workshops and a tangible community outcome. The objective was to build local capacity and active citizenship among youth, bridging academic expertise and community development.
• Inclusive Cities & Municipal Good Practices (2019–2020) – Programmed (project-based): Aligned with UN SDGs, BAU led the “Inclusive and Sustainable Cities: Municipalities Good Practices in Lebanon” project in partnership with UNESCO and UN–Habitat iau-hesd.net. Launched in 2019, this initiative developed an interdisciplinary methodology to collect and disseminate best practices from local municipalities across Lebanon in social cohesion and urban governance iau-hesd.netiau-hesd.net. BAU faculty and students engaged with municipal authorities, documenting community programs that promoted solidarity with vulnerable groups and sustainable development. The process included presenting findings and methodologies in public forums, thereby educating local government stakeholders and encouraging replication of successful practices iau-hesd.net. While essentially a research/outreach project (not an annual event), it involved regular field engagement and knowledge exchange sessions with municipalities over its duration, illustrating BAU’s role in community education beyond campus.
• Community Urban Regeneration with Municipality (2020–ongoing) – Programmed (project-based): BAU’s Department of Architecture has also partnered with the Beirut Municipality on a community improvement project in the Tarik Jdideh Starting in 2020, BAU architects worked on redesigning public spaces (Cola Square and Bostani Street) to make them more pedestrian-friendly and livable iau-hesd.net. The design proposals – widening sidewalks, adding benches, kiosks, bike lanes, landscaping, etc. – were developed in consultation with the Mayor and municipal engineers iau-hesd.net. BAU’s team prepared detailed designs and tender documents, and the project is moving into implementation iau-hesd.net. While not a classroom lecture, this collaboration serves as an outreach engagement with the community’s built environment. It is programmatic in that BAU is providing ongoing expert support to the city; it also offered BAU students practical training and involved presenting plans in public meetings. The objective is to transfer university expertise to benefit the local community’s urban quality of life.

(Other long-term outreach: BAU’s Research Center for Environment & Development in the Bekaa regularly offers capacity-building workshops for rural youth and women in areas like sustainable agriculture and literacy, as part of BAU’s community service centers. Additionally, BAU’s Business Incubator (Center for Entrepreneurship) runs training programs for local entrepreneurs, fostering social enterprises to integrate underprivileged communities iau-hesd.net.)

Student-Run Outreach Initiatives (Voluntary Community Engagement)

• UNESCO Club (Student Society) – Programmed (ongoing): BAU students themselves operate clubs dedicated to community service. One notable example is the UNESCO Club at BAU, which is “dedicated to ... providing free services and outreach to the public.” edu.lb. Through this club, student volunteers undertake activities such as literacy programs, cultural heritage awareness, and various community campaigns in line with UNESCO values. These are voluntary, student-organized projects engaging the local community – for instance, club members might host free tutoring sessions, public seminars, or cultural events for school children and residents. The UNESCO Club’s objective is to turn students into active community members who positively impact society, and it has an ongoing presence every year (not a one-time event) bau.edu.lb.
• COVID-19 Vaccination Campaign Volunteering (2021) – Ad hoc (period of several months): In early 2021, during the national COVID-19 vaccination rollout, BAU mobilized its students – especially from the Nursing Department – to assist as volunteers in vaccination centers. In line with BAU’s social mission and partnership with the health sector, nursing students served throughout the national vaccination campaign to support medical staff and encourage public vaccination edu.lb. This student-led effort involved volunteering at local clinics and hospitals, directly engaging with the public to improve public health outcomes. BAU highlighted that its nursing students “endorsed their voluntary support throughout [the] National Vaccination Campaign” – demonstrating sustained commitment over the entire campaign period iau-hesd.netbau.edu.lb. This was a temporary initiative tied to the pandemic emergency, but it exemplified BAU’s culture of student volunteerism in community health outreach.
• Beirut Port Explosion Relief (2020) – Ad hoc (short-term): After the August 2020 Beirut Port explosion, BAU students from various faculties formed volunteer groups to aid affected neighborhoods. For example, architecture and engineering students joined efforts to assess damaged buildings and map unsafe structures in devastated areas, while other student volunteers helped distribute relief supplies. BAU reports that student volunteer work was a key part of assessing affected areas of the Beirut Blast, reflecting democratic engagement and leadership in the community iau-hesd.net. This spontaneous volunteer campaign (lasting weeks to months post-blast) was student-driven and aimed at both providing immediate assistance and involving youth in the recovery of their city. It was not a formal curriculum program, but it was supported by the university as part of its civic responsibility ethos.
• Student-Led Awareness Campaigns – Programmed (recurring): BAU’s student clubs and societies regularly organize public awareness campaigns on issues like health and environment. For instance, students have led annual blood donation drives, bringing mobile blood bank units to campus and public squares (BAU was a pioneer in launching mobile blood donation campaigns in Lebanon, conducting hundreds of drives in the past decade). Similarly, medical students and the Health Club have run outreach campaigns on topics such as mental health awareness, cholera prevention (e.g. “Spread Awareness, Not Bacteria” campaign with info booths for the public), and chronic disease screening in local communities. These initiatives are voluntary and student-run, often in partnership with NGOs or government ministries. They recur on a regular basis (e.g. blood drives every semester, annual health awareness days), targeting the general public and school youth with the objective of improving community health knowledge and encouraging positive action. (Sources: BAU Facebook posts, Health Sciences student club reports.)

Each of the above examples demonstrates how Beirut Arab University extends its educational mission beyond campus boundaries. Whether through one-off workshops in schools and community centers or through sustained partnerships and volunteer programs, BAU engages diverse audiences – schoolchildren, university-bound youth, professionals, and the general public. The objectives consistently center on knowledge-sharing, capacity-building, and social responsibility: from training teachers and empowering city youth, to raising health and environmental awareness, and mobilizing student volunteers for community wellbeing. Through these ad hoc and programmed outreach activities, BAU reinforces its role as a civic-minded institution fostering education and development in the broader community.