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Bridges to New Horizons: Integral Projects Leadership is designed to equip young professionals ages 25-35 with advanced skills and a certification in four key areas: project management, leadership development, peacebuilding, and trauma healing. Through facilitated sessions and coaching, participants apply this unique integral approach to accelerate high-impact projects across agriculture, education, environment, healthcare, and other sectors in communities and countries that have experienced significant conflict. This grant focuses on the first offering of Bridges to New Horizons: Integral Projects Leadership - Lebanon (IPL-L) as a model program that can be sustained and replicated.
The model Bridges to New Horizons - Lebanon will support 35 project team leaders and 175 project team members in total, working on 35 community-based projects across Lebanon. Lebanon is one of the most diverse countries in the world across ethnicity, religion, politics, and economic levels. The country is small in size, but the hopes for the country's prosperity and sustainability have ripple effects in the region. The median age of Lebanon's population (26.7) makes the selection of participants ages 25-35 critical to a program designed to shape a positive future. By bringing participants together to strengthen practical projects while emphasizing peacebuilding and trauma healing, a new generation of leaders is being developed who are equipped to build unity and social cohesion.
The success and replicability of the program requires an interactive, online platform where program learning materials and resources can be accessed by participants and facilitators; projects can be tracked and monitored; teams can collaborate; project plans can be managed and updated; and presentations of results can be prepared for public sharing and distribution. The Rotary International Global Grant of $172,500, in total, includes $137,500 for necessary operational support for the project management aspect of the program and $35,000 to support quality documentation and the presentation of project results at a public forum and a "project pitch" in Lebanon. This event will be attended by community stakeholders, policymakers, international organizations, social impact investors, and members of the Rotary community. This grant ensures that participants, their projects, and plans are effectively supported, and that the necessary documentation and systems are in place to establish a foundation for future replication and scaling. (A crowdfunding model has been used to support scholarships to cover workshop attendance, meals, housing, facilitation, coaching, and other direct participant costs.)
This program builds on a successful Rotary International Global Grant-funded program called NewGen Peacebuilders-Lebanon that was completed in 2022 with students from 11 universities. The co-leader of Bridges to New Horizons is a Rotary Peace Fellow. The development of Bridges to New Horizons-Lebanon has taken place over two years, involved an assessment based on 200+ interviews and report/research reviews, and involved Rotarians, Rotaractors, Positive Peace Activators, the Rotary Action Group for Peace-Lebanon Chapter, as well as collaborations and support from the International Coaching Federation-Lebanon Chapter and Project Management Institute-Lebanon Chapter.
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