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Kamel Youssef Jaber Cultural
and Social Center
Declaration 63/98
The Kamel
Youssef Jaber Cultural and Social Center is a charitable
foundation founded in 1996 by the late Kamel Youssef
Jaber as a not-for-profit organization. It officially
opened its doors in July 1998, and has since been
running under the supervision of Mr. Yassine Jaber MP,
supporting a wide range of cultural and social
activities.
The Center’s main objectives
are simple:
We wish to aid in the cultural
and social development of the Nabatieh region, and to
assist its people in furthering themselves, and their
knowledge, and hobbies in the fields of their choice.
In 1999 The Center started
offering classes in Computer Skills and English
Language. The response to these classes was
overwhelming. The number of applicants within 48 hrs of
announcing these programs exceeded 1500. Since then the
number of students who have attended these classes that
have been running continuously, has well exceed ten
thousand students.
In addition to the courses
mentioned above The Center has been offering fast
vocational training classes, in various fields such as
secretarial training, marketing, cosmetology,
hairdressing and computer maintenance.
Since The Center started to
operate, it has focused on children and teenagers,
offering them various creative activities such as folk
dancing, theater, choir singing, ballet, and painting.
A folk dance group and a chorus
were formed in the center, and made presentations on the
Center’s stage during various home events, they also
participated in many festivals and folk dance shows on
national level. A theater club was also formed, and
youngsters learned how to act, and took part in the
center, and in villages around Nabatieh.
The art classes (painting)
revealed many young talents, and for the past four years
the center has been holding an annual art exhibition at
the end of summer, where these young artists, exhibit
their paintings. This exhibition has become a very
popular event in the region of Nabatieh. Some of our
young artists were sent by the Center to other Arab
countries, to join regional exhibitions. Some of them
came back with distinguished awards.
Through the Nabatieh Shabab
Center, which the Center started in co-ordination with
the association for supporting Public Schools in
Nabatieh region, young students from Public Schools have
the chance to join various clubs such as social, media,
internet painting, music, theater, folk dance, cinema,
photography environment, table tennis, basketball,
volleyball and gymnastics. These clubs are offered as
extra curricular activities, twice a week after classes,
and help kids develop their different talents, and help
to promote democracy in action through activities that
address the challenges facing the Mouhafathat el-Nabatieh
Community. The core of the program is rooted in a
structured methodology of collaborative projects that
are based on democratic principles, and advanced
communication techniques. The number of children and
teenagers who have joined this program exceeds 1200
children each term.
All year round The Center
offers to its audience of kids, and especially Public
Schools students various types of entertainment,
including plays, shows, and musicals. The peak of these
activities is in summer where the child’s cultural
festival takes place. It usually gathers more than one
thousand children of all ages, where they take part in
sport activities, computer games, internet club, talent
activities, trips, and watch a series of entertaining
shows.
To be able to reach children in
various communities, the Center, in co-operation with
local NGO’s, has sponsored children’s events and camps,
in several villages in Nabatieh, Marjeyoun, and Hasbaya.
This co-operation and outreach has proved very useful in
encouraging children and youth to know each other, and
in promoting the principal of national unity.
The Center has held in the past
few years special educational support sessions for under
performing students. The center helps through these
special sessions those students, who come from different
public schools in Nabatieh Caza, to improve their
academic performance. The center also offers special
sessions for helping under performing students prepare
to sit for official exams. The number of students who
attend such sessions every year is over 500 students.
In addition, the center has
been offering special programs, dealing with illiteracy,
and child labor. The center also manages the children
municipalities program which also aims to promote
democracy through the process of students each year
electing their representatives working together to
achieve aims that they collectively chose.
The center has not forgotten
the elderly, especially widows, and two day trips have
been organized, twice a month on a regular bases. The
trip usually includes full bool stay at 3 star hotel, and sight seeing. These trips have proven
to be very popular because they allow those who are
usually forgotten at home, to change the environment
they are living in, and come back with a new spirit.
Other social activities include
providing food rations several times a year to the poor
and needy, especially widows at home and homes with
orphans, in the city of Nabatieh and villages in the
Caza of Nabatieh.
Among the facilities available
at the center is a public library that is a partner of
the Ministry of Culture, and the only one in the city of
Nabatieh. Within the library an internet station is
operated under the pipop program in partnership with PCA.
Both the library and the internet station are open to
the public free of charge.
During the past years the
center has welcomed all NGOs and Public Institutions to
use free of charge its multipurpose halls, and many of
them have done so. The Center has become the major
meeting point for almost all activities in the region,
being cultural, social (Iftars), official, workshops,
athletic etc…
The center employs a number of
administrative staff, and instructors in various fields.
The center’s activities are also supported by a big
group of volunteers. A Women’s Committee deals with
women and children affairs, as well as a general
activities committee that help to run all the cultural
and social events and activities (e.g. summer camps,
field trips, shabab clubs etc…)
The center is located in the
center of the city of Nabatieh. Its facilities comprise
a multipurpose hall with a theater fully
air-conditioned, exhibition hall, teaching rooms,
offices, a library, two computer labs, sports field,
gardens, special art section, and a number of guest
suites should the need arise.
All the activities, classes, workshops, shows training
sessions, facilities, are offered free o f charge, with
the Jaber foundation headed by Mr. Yassine Jaber
covering all costs and expenses. |
