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Birth of a Dream
Dream to Commitment
Expanding the Circle
Forming a Committee
Establishing the AVS Office
Obtaining Legal Status
BIRTH OF A DREAM
The idea of establishing a volunteer center in Lebanon began in the
mind of the founder of AVS, Dr. Patricia Mihaly Nabti, in the spring of
1993 while she was a professor of Cultural Anthropology at the American
University of Beirut. At
the time, she had never heard of service learning (a method of teaching
which incorporates social service into the curriculum) – but she did
believe in experiential education (having students learn from real
experiences). In addition,
she believed that one of the objectives of higher education is to
develop responsible citizens.
Based on those two beliefs, she required students in her course,
SBS 201: Introduction to Society, to do 10 hours of social service, and
then to discuss that experience in terms of the concepts of the course.
She found that most of her students had never before engaged in
social service beyond their narrow network of relatives, friends and
neighbors. She also found
that it was difficult for students to locate opportunities for social
service. Having already
been familiar with the Haas Center for Public Service at Stanford
University, she decided at that time that she would do her best to help
create such a center at AUB.
DREAM TO COMMITMENT
Over the next five years Professor Nabti collected information and
published materials from the Haas Center, and from other public service
and volunteer centers at universities she visited in the United States.
In the process of collecting this information, she became exposed
to service-learning, adding this to her objectives for a university
center. In the spring of
1997 she drafted and submitted a proposal to establish a center at AUB
primarily based on the Haas Center model. The University did not adopt the proposal, so on
June 12, 1998, Dr. Nabti made a personal commitment to pursue the dream
on her own,
broadening its scope to serve all of Lebanon, rather than one
university.
EXPANDING THE CIRCLE
Before leaving Lebanon that summer (1998), Dr. Nabti who will be
more informally referred to here as Patricia, drafted a new proposal,
tentatively naming the center "Service
Unlimited". She shared
the propoal with her students, and began to introduce it to others in
Lebanon who were already
committed to social service. Only
one of them had ever heard of volunteer centers, but they were all
intrigued by the idea. One
of those first people she introduced the idea to was Hayat Osseyran, her
former MA student. She was
well aware that Hayat was one of the founders of the South Lebanese
Society for the Blind, a society that provided community-based
rehabilitation for the blind and vision-impaired in the area of
Nabatiyyi. She had even taken one of her classes on a fieldtrip to the
Society. Hayat, who had
visited the National Volunteer Centre in London, was very enthusiastic
about the idea of Service Unlimited, and suggested others who might join
in the project. Patricia
returned to California that summer and began to collect information from
volunteer centers and other service institutions outside of
universities. The most
important models for her were the Sonoma County Volunteer Center, the
Foundation Center, and Service-Learning 2000.
FORMING
A COMMITTEE
In the Fall of 1998, Patricia returned to Beirut, and formed a Founding
Committee to establish the legal basis for her dream.
The other Committee members (Paul Abi Rached, Munir Abi Said,
Rima Jeha, Joumana Kalot, Adele Khudr, Ghassan Melki, Hayat Osseyran,
and Kamal Shayya) were not only people strongly committed to social
service in Lebanon, but also people adventurous enough to share the
dream. Patricia also met
with Mr. Zeid Khiami, the General Director of the Directorate of Youth
and Sports, a division of the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports. She had previously worked with him to encourage public school
participation in the AUB Folk Dance Festival, a tradition she had
revived in 1995. Mr. Khiami expressed his support for the idea of a
volunteer center, and encouraged her to submit the incorporation papers
through the Directorate of Youth and Sports (DYS).
The Committee drafted a Constitution and By-Laws and submitted
them, along with other incorporation documents to the DYS in November,
1998, selecting the official name "Association for Volunteer
Services" (AVS). While waiting for the license, AVS began its program.
Hayat Osseyran became Vice President of AVS and emerged as the
most committed member of the Founding Committee, serving as a full
partner in the project. Hayat
and Patricia served as volunteers, working full-time for AVS without any
remuneration for over a year. The
first salaried staff member of AVS was Sally Kaya who worked on
developing a data base of non-governmental organizations in Lebanon. The first project AVS decided to undertake was to hold a
Volunteer Opportunities Fair. Through
the support of Mr. Khiami, AVS was able to reserve UNESCO Palace for the
Fair, and later the patronage of the Minister of Education, Mr. Mohamed
Yusuf Beydoun, for the event. As
the primary government-owned performance, conference, and exhibition
hall in Lebanon, UNESCO Palace gave considerable credibility to AVS, as
did the patronage of Minister Beydoun.
ESTABLISHING THE AVS OFFICE
The Founding Committee soon realized that it would need an office to
further its objectives. Thus, in March, 1999, AVS moved its center of
operations from Patricia’s living room, to its office in Ain al-Tini.
Sally Kaya returned to work on her MA thesis, and Mayada al-Khateeb
replaced her as the single paid staff member of AVS.
Patricia and Hayat then began an AVS tradition of holding
orientation meetings for non-governmental organizations in different
areas of Lebanon: Beirut, Tripoli, Zahle, Saida and Nabatiyyi (a
tradition expanded in later years to include Baalbek, Sur, and other
population centers in Lebanon). They
introduced the concept of a volunteer center, its objectives, principles
and programs, and invited the organizations to participate in the first
Volunteer Opportunities Fair. The
first Fair was held in May, 1999 with more than 50 participating
organizations. With the
first Fair, AVS also launched another of its programs, the AVS Volunteer
Directory, which, in its first edition, was combined with the Fair
Program. The first
Fair was a great success, introducing NGOs to a more systematic approach
to volunteer recruitment and management, providing a positive forum for
networking among NGOs, exposing the public to a broad range of social
service organizations in Lebanon, and encouraging people of all ages to
become volunteers.
OBTAINING
LEGAL STATUS
Encouraged by these first successes, AVS broadened its programs in a
number of directions. It
established a series of workshops for affiliated NGOs, developed a
training program in service-learning for educational institutions, and
initiated a campaign to make UNESCO Palace accessible to the physically
disabled. On October 18, 1999 AVS was finally granted a license
(738/m/99) by the Lebanese government, thus establishing its legal
status within Lebanon. With
legalization, Patricia and Hayat became paid staff members – though
still volunteering the many hours they served AVS beyond full-time.
Since its conception, AVS has experienced various changes in its
Board, staff and team of regular volunteers, has steadily expanded its
circle of affiliated organizations, and has continued to diversify its
programs. Throughout these
changes, the objectives of the Association have remained the same – to
encourage, facilitate and improve volunteering and community service
throughout Lebanon, to empower
individuals with the realization that they can (and should) make a difference through
volunteering, and to bridge social barriers through encouraging the
different sectors of society to work together for the good of all. |
History
of AVS