Mending Lives

Jane_Houng: [00:00:00] Hi, I'm Jane Hong, and this is Mending Lives, where I'm talking with people from a patchwork of places. Some have had their lives ripped apart by loss, some are in the business of repairing others brokenness, but we're all seeking to make this world more beautiful.

Mansour Saliba is a young Lebanese who gives me hope for humanity. How did I meet him? Through Becky's button. As a final year USAID American University of Beirut scholar, and the team leader of a community service project called Gender Based Violence Awareness and Response, he reached out to my charity for some panic alarms for women in a Palestinian refugee camp in Northern Lebanon.

Mansour took full advantage of the opportunities offered to him at AUB, gaining professional experience as well as joining clubs, workshops and many [00:01:00] volunteering programs. This summer, with a high distinction for his Bachelor of Science degree in Environmental Health, as well as a string of awards and certificates, he was offered a place at Cambridge University to continue his studies.

When the scholarship didn't materialize, He opted instead to accept a Fulbright Scholarship for a Master's in Environmental and Resource Management at Arizona State University. I see Mansour as a man of great promise, a natural leader in his generation. At very short notice, for example, he jumped out of his comfort zone to join me in an interview about Becky's Button at a major TV station in Beirut last July and agreed to be a guest on this podcast where he revealed things about his upbringing that confirmed, to me, that great drive comes from a striving to rise above one's beginnings and an embracing of all opportunities That come one's way.

I hope you enjoy [00:02:00] this conversation.

Jane_Houng: Mansour, we've just come back from TV Lebanon, where we were interviewed by Joe Ibrahim about a recent Becky's Button project. Welcome to my podcast.

Mansour Saliba: Hello. How are you? Thank you for inviting me to the podcast.

Jane_Houng: Thank you for being so daring to agree. I understand it's your first and also to be interviewed live on TV was a first too. How did you feel about that?

Mansour Saliba: It was quite stressful, but at the end I think it went quite well.

Jane_Houng: I believe it went very well and I think when I look back as a student there are so many opportunities [00:03:00] and it takes a certain courage to say, yes, I'm gonna try, I'm gonna do that, and you're one of those people, so delighted you're here.

Mansour Saliba: Thank you, thank you for inviting me.

Jane_Houng: So, let's go back to the project, because one thing my listeners need to know, is a change of strategy about Becky's button. We've always wanted to raise awareness about gender based violence. We've always wanted to improve our social media so we are more accessible to younger people. But a few months ago, we started talking about the idea of working with university students. Why? Because part of gender based violence is to do with old behavior, old social systems. And I like to think that by working with you, that this is an opportunity to give younger people the chance to think, Hmm, you know, how am I going to be when [00:04:00] I'm a father? How am I going to treat my girlfriend? So it's about a cultural shift, because it's all very well saying, okay, we're going to decrease the amount of gender based violence in Lebanon, but how do we really, really do that? And one thing has become more apparent, and that's actually changing the behavior, the behavior of women, and, as well, the behavior of men. What do you think?

Mansour Saliba: Yeah, I completely agree with you. I think it starts at a young age and the issue with a lot of interventions, they mainly focus on women. And during the project, when we discussed it in detail, I remember one of the women there explicitly asked us why is the room full of women? With not one man present and I think it took me a while to answer that question. I don't think I answered it properly that day. So even women themselves and even from rural communities, they have been asking the same question because men are propagators of violence, but also they are exposed to violence. [00:05:00] So I think, I totally agree with you. Men should be included in interventions, but also at a young age because when we think of norms, social norms, they can only be tackled at a young age because if they stay with us till after our 20s and 30s, I think it's it's quite difficult to change them.

Jane_Houng: That reminds me of something my nephew said years back when I had to share the news of what happened to their cousin. And I asked them as young men, what can we do to stop this kind of thing happening again and again? And they said, hey, at school we get some tuition about how to treat women. But it's very, very little compared to what young women get. And we, as young men, we're exposed to violence too. So we, as young men, we choose not to be alpha males.

Mansour Saliba: Yeah, . I remember in the schools too I used to do a lot of awareness sessions about you know, like the period cycle and they used to distribute a lot of period pads and then immediately because I come from an also rural [00:06:00] community very small public school and everybody like all the males out and then the females only and I'm like now reflecting back on them like awareness is important. Like if you don't teach the man about like, you know, the women's physiology and all of that stuff, then how do you expect the man to be, let's say, considerate of of women and of their needs and so on.

Jane_Houng: Now, let's go back to the project, the project which initiated this podcast, really. Because I want to work more in universities. In the last six months or so, I've had more interest from local NGOs in Lebanon saying, hey, we want to collaborate with you for Becky's button. We can see there's a need in our community. And then your offer came and it was this, let me tell you from my side that you wrote to say that you were a scholarship student at the American University of Beirut, AUB, and there was a project called GBV Awareness [00:07:00] and Response and you had a team and you put a proposal and With thanks to USAID, it could go forward, and you were looking for some panic buttons. You wanted to buy them for your project.

Mansour Saliba: Yeah, exactly. I guess let's start by giving a bit of a brief about the project. So, we're a team of four scholarship students at the UB, at the USAID Higher Education Scholarship, and one of the requirements of our scholarship is to implement a community service project, humbly funded by USAID. The process kicked off by some desk research focusing on every member's community. So, there's me, Joelle, Mohamed, and Duaa. And after doing the desk research, we noticed that Mohamed, who's from the Palestinian camp there in Baalbeck. So, after doing the desk research, we've noticed that the area where Mohammed comes from, Al Jalil Palestinian refugee camp in Baalbek, has let's say the most prevalent social issues. And after filtering through the research process, we decided to focus [00:08:00] on gender based violence. However, we wanted to go on the ground and exactly see how this gender based violence is manifested. And after talking to the residents there, it turns out inside the camp, there are a lot of rates of mainly domestic violence, but inside the camp, there's, like, a jurisdiction of a small let's say municipality of Palestinian members who all help each other out. But then this same municipality does not have like I say, a jurisdiction outside the camp. And all the gender based violence that's happening outside the camp, they cannot do anything about it. And the Baalbek municipality, the Lebanese municipality is not helping that much. So, we went out, we asked, and turns out this gender based violence is mainly happening at a very affordable commercial area. So it's limiting the mobility of these women to go and access their subsistence needs at cheaper, affordable prices. So this is the way it started. We talk about the intervention, how we like funneled down to the intervention. But once we use the intervention, we decided we wanted as part of the intervention is to provide them with personal alarm systems. And [00:09:00] we went on the Lebanese market, me and my coordinator at the Center for Civic Engagement and Community Service at the American University of Beirut. And we found none, like none in the Lebanese market where you can buy these personal alarm systems. And my coordinator mentioned Becky's Button to me.

So we were just sitting and we just laughed about it. Like we just, we're gonna email them, we're not gonna care. And then we'll check, maybe we'll remove the item, we'll get it from abroad, from Amazon or any of these platforms. So we sent the email, just like a five minute email, me and my coordinator sitting explaining the project. And then we sent it to the project manager at Becky's Button. And we forgot about it. And then somehow they replied to us after two days, unexpectedly, and now we're here.

Jane_Houng: About Becky's button, you know, it's a very simple device. It emits a very loud siren, giving a chance for women to run and ideally report. And the origination of the button was when I did some work in Greece. I was working with refugees [00:10:00] there and in a camp, the worst camp in the EU, actually. And it was recognized that this kind of device would be very useful for women, not particularly for sexual attacks, actually, but like you said, they, going shopping, going out to buy a little bit of food, or going to the toilet at night because it was a little bit of a trek, and they all lived in tents.

So, if that siren sounded, people would come running.

Mansour Saliba: Exactly.

Jane_Houng: And From what you've told me, the response of the 100 women that you that you engaged with, they had a similar kind of comment. You know, GBV, yes, but also for their daily living. It could be a very useful tool to have.

Mansour Saliba: Yes, exactly. Because especially because we implemented the intervention in a rural community. Everybody knows everybody because I come from a rural community. And so once this alarm sounds, everyone was telling us it's really helpful because it's gonna, let's say, get people you [00:11:00] know, to come and see what's happening. They even mentioned it's helpful also beyond GBV. For example, one thing we didn't know is there's a lot of stealings happening in the camp. So they told us, like, if someone steals something from me, I can just now press this alarm and it's gonna alert the people around me. There's a lot of stray dogs also, unfortunately. They told us sometimes they attack residents. If it happens, we can use this alarm. So one eye opening experience was also that this alarm, like, went beyond what the scope that we had in mind for it, you know, like gender based violence are going to this area they're going shopping someone might go and harass them and they mentioned like a lot of other applications of this very simple device as you mentioned

Jane_Houng: It's going to be very useful to get feedback. And of course, we'll put those in our show notes Let's tell our listeners a little bit more in detail about what you did

Mansour Saliba: Exactly. So we mentioned how we funneled down to the area and the problem. And then once we had our problem, we had to start thinking about an intervention. And with the help of the center and our team members, we [00:12:00] were looking for a similar or at least previous models who implemented something related to gender based violence. And we've noticed is that always these NGOs or whatever, whoever implements the intervention, they go I don't maybe condescendingly let's say they do this like they're i'm lecturing you now about gbv and they go and oh There are these types of GBV. Do this you do that Let's say they provide some materials and then they go and leave. So this is the main thing that we didn't want to do because especially since we come from these rural areas. Because I come from rural area who sometimes these NGOs they come and they do awareness sessions. Awareness is quite important, but it's not enough by itself. And we had only 16 hours so two full days. So our main question was, how can we make something impactful within these 16 hours?

And the first step we for sure wanted to include awareness, but then we wanted the awareness materials to stay with the beneficiaries. So, we looked for a platform that's going to keep the information, the resources with the beneficiaries. And lucky for us, we came across an application called [00:13:00] SRHR Wikoyo. Which was implemented by the American University of Beirut and this application has a lot of the information about gender based violence and about the health service resources where let's say the people who are exposed to GBV, they can go and they access for either like where they can go and access for very cheap prices or even sometimes free.

So, we used this app for the awareness session of the project and then we helped the beneficiaries. We gave them access to Wi Fi and to download this app. So now whenever they can access it offline, let's say I was unfortunately exposed to something. I can go and check my area. I can check what are the health resources I can go access in terms of security, even legal services. Let's say someone unfortunately needs to divorce. They cannot afford a lawyer. So this was the first step. We didn't want to just go and then talk to them because they're going to mostly forget everything. And then the second step we wanted beyond knowledge, we started thinking about skills. And we were wondering what is the optimal skills to have in case someone was exposed.

And the first thing that came to our mind is [00:14:00] self defense skills. So, we also contacted an expert in the field who gave them a basic self defense skills course, obviously not to harass the attacker, but at least to give them with the button, with the self defense skills, just these very like small precious seconds of survival for them to run away to protect themselves.

And then also the third component is tools. And this is where we decided to focus on a personal alarm system, and we led the conversation with Becky's button, but also we included some flashlights, for example, in case they're going out at night. Also, the flashlight includes some options of, like, these very blurry lights where they flash on and off, again, to confuse the abuser, provide these precious seconds of survival, and also we gave them some of the subsistence needs that they're not able to access from this commercial area where the GBV is prevalent.

Jane_Houng: Tell me more about the team because it seems you're a natural leader. People are following you and none of your team members would also agree to be on this podcast. So, speak on behalf of them.

Mansour Saliba: Yeah, [00:15:00] obviously, I love all of them so much. I think all of us cuz we've never done this before like podcast, TV interview, and so on. We're Including myself, we're all shy to to come and talk for the whole 30 minutes. Like, what am I going to talk about? I've barely lived for 20 years. I don't have anything to talk about for 30 minutes. So, yeah, all of us were shy, but all of them are extremely thankful to Becky's Button and to the support to the unexpected support, really, because all of us, we completely forgot about the email, as I mentioned.

Like, it's, we started thinking about other resources. Where can we look? And Yeah, the team is amazing. All of them were on the ground that helped us from the inception of the project to its to its final date and everyone, because we have an engineer, we have a business we have a computer scientist, and myself, I'm studying environmental health, so it's quite a multidisciplinary team where each one of us. Like I said, the computer scientists were and the engineers, they focus on the technical stuff of a project.

Me myself. I am the leader. So I'm I look on everything like from a bird's eye view. Our friend Mohammed, who's doing business is very into picture taking and video taking [00:16:00] and marketing and these things since he's learning them at university. So I think the team was also unexpectedly optimal because all of us actually were assigned to different teams and we split from them and we made our own team. So yeah, the team's amazing as well.

Jane_Houng: You're only 20 years old and I don't need your thanks, you know, I just need to talk to people like you. So inspiring and you've inspired others and you have completed the project and by all accounts, it has made an impact. And another thing that I particularly like about the project Mansour, is that it seems that more and more AUB students have heard about Becky's Button because you gave a presentation in the university and maybe there's a report, maybe there's a newsletter, I don't know but there's been some publicity there as well, hasn't there?

Mansour Saliba: Yes, exactly. So there was a let's say a conference that happens yearly about all the community service projects and the community service interventions that happen at AUB. And as part of that conference, they had [00:17:00] a panel on gender justice and we presented our project as part of that panel. And everyone was quite impressed about Becky's Button, about the collaborative, the unexpected collaboration, because It's quite rare to hear someone, you know, like, just by an email and then actually getting a successful collaboration.

And as university students, because usually organizations, they're a bit iffy about students, you know, because especially since also it's a mandatory project. Obviously we are enjoying this and doing the project, but also it's a requirement for us. So a lot of organizations, usually when they see such titles, they're like, oh, it's mandatory students just want to be done with it. They don't want to do an impact. So, yeah, it was quite lucky, I would say, for us to get this collaboration. And after the conference, a lot of students, professors, instructors, and so on, they asked us about Becky's Button. I think there was, yeah, quite a good publicity there.

Because these interventions are also really important in in academia, you know, because awareness is important, but also we need to research the subject to know what is the optimal intervention. We need to research these interventions, and get surveys, and get [00:18:00] statistics, and so on.

Jane_Houng: I hope this is the first of many projects in AUB where Becky's button can play a part. You mentioned that you are studying environmental health. Now you've just graduated right now. Why did you choose environmental health?

Mansour Saliba: Yeah, so that's a long story as well. So, I was brought up as we said, in a rural community and in this rural community in Lebanon, there's these. Maybe I'll call them misconceptions where there's this like 1,2,3,4,5 important fields and all the rest like don't go into them. So I was bred into going into medicine. So I applied at the Lebanese University. All was going well and same as the email for Becky's button I applied to the USAID scholarship and I was like, there's no way they're gonna reply to me. I forgot about it. Found my second resource, the Lebanese at the public university here in Lebanon. Was thinking of how can I work while also study and so on. And then, out of nowhere, just like Becky's button replied to us, the USAID scholarship gives me a phone call. Hey, you got [00:19:00] accepted. It was two days after the university started.

And I remember they sent me an email with all the majors and I had like 30 minutes to decide. And for me, environmentalism has always been something of a lifestyle, but I never thought of it as a profession or an academic subject to pursue. And once I looked at all the majors I took a leap of faith, I think.

I was like, I'm not gonna do like these 1,2,3,4,5 majors that everyone thinks is important. So that's why one of the main reasons I chose environmental law is because it's something I'm passionate about, but it's always been something as like a lifestyle that I didn't think was going to be like a good or a fruitful career. Yeah, so it was a leap of faith and I think it was a it was quite a good fruitful leap of faith.

Jane_Houng: So your father is a farmer and without a full scholarship you wouldn't have been able to attend such a prestigious university as AUB. I'm sure you've done very well because you told me in the car as we [00:20:00] were coming back here that you have a fulbright scholarship to do a master's at Arizona State University. And you also have an offer from the University of Cambridge to do an MPhil. I really hope you get a scholarship for that, Mansour. Tell me about that process.

Mansour Saliba: Yeah, so, in my second year after doing two years within this field, I have realized that I mainly want to continue within this field, but within the academic like the academia of environmental science, environmental health, and so on. And so I started to kick off the graduate application process from my second year. Some of the stuff I didn't apply to because I thought I was not good enough, but then when I was sitting with my professor, she was like, just apply to anything. Keep applying, keep applying, and then whatever you don't get, you don't get.

So, I applied to Fulbright, I applied to Cambridge, and a lot of these things, and again, the same process happens again and again with the same as Becky Spotton and USAID. Like, when applying to Cambridge, I had the same idea, like, there's no way I'm gonna get accepted because I [00:21:00] come from a public health faculty and the program at Cambridge is quantitative climate science, so it falls under theoretical physics and math.

So I was like, how are we gonna take someone from like, from public health to math and physics? I did the interview and they seemed to have my passion, my enthusiasm because I had a lot of prerequisites I need to learn and I told them I will do it throughout the summer and so on and I got the acceptance. Also, I don't know where I still don't understand how I got it, but I did.

Jane_Houng: How was the interview conducted?

Mansour Saliba: It was online and it's quite a good interview . Obviously, it's Cambridge Standard, but I think it's one of the best interviews that I, both in terms of the subjects that are tackled, the academic, but also they tackle the leadership, the personal stuff, and also leave some room for just like personal communication or human communication. Yeah, it was quite an eye opening experience. For Fuller, it was quite more stressful because it's scholarship. So you've got this panel of people like bombarding you with questions and they're not supposed to react if you like do a joke or something. And even if I joke everybody's like so serious, I think they wanted to laugh, but they were not able to. [00:22:00] But it seemed to have passed well since now it's like the acceptance is here.

Jane_Houng: And climate change is an issue all over the world. And tragically, just like war, it's the women and children that are going to suffer the most from all this. But back to you and environmental health. So if you complete a master's program, which I'm sure you will, do you have any idea at this stage where you think it might lead.

Mansour Saliba: Optimally, if all at this stage, but I've noticed that sometimes goals throughout life change, like all the time at this stage, I feel like I want to, as I said, continue into academia. So hopefully jump from a master's to PhD postdoc. And then, but eventually I want to come back here to AUB because I felt like, Lebanon needs a lot of expertise, especially in the environmental field. Because everyone studies, goes abroad, teaches or works abroad, and then only comes back here to party in the summer and then leaves again. So, yeah, and also I love the UB community is quite, [00:23:00] it's quite diverse. It's quite, like, it's a mix of everything. All the people from all over the world, from all the, whatever, like the economic class, socioeconomic classes and so on. All of them in this one very like we might think it's a big campus in Lebanon, but compared to like international campuses It's a very small campus. You've got all of this diversity bunched up in this very small area And it's a quiet, learning space both academically professionally and also personally My point is My personality changed a lot after attending AUB and because of this entire like shift at AUB, I felt like I really want to continue to be in this space like throughout my life. So for now, the goal is to come back to AUB. But what I've noticed sometimes is that After experiencing things in life goals change because I've never had this goal of being it like I used to hate being a Teacher when I was in high school like I'm never gonna be a teacher But now at the university it's a bit different because you're teaching something you're passionate about the students also are passionate about the subject. Because here the school is in Lebanon. Everybody just goes through the same curriculum and they're not they don't [00:24:00] have Zero or just a bit of leniency in terms of the tracks to be chosen. So you've got students taking economics who probably hate economics. . Yes. They end up making it's good subject to study for the future. End up making the class held for the teacher too. So after seeing that, I was like, I'm never gonna be a teacher. I'm not gonna handle students like I'm going crazy all the time because they just wanna leave the class. But coming to AUB later on, especially is also, it's a research focused university. It was I felt like it was a really eye opening and amazing experience. So if it works out, hopefully i'll go full cycle and come back to AUB also

Jane_Houng: So you feel a loyalty to your country?

Mansour Saliba: Yes, definitely.

Jane_Houng: Where's that come from? Do you think?

Mansour Saliba: I think one part of it is coming from a rural area where There's a lot of issues prevalent and there's not a lot of interventions, you know because interventions usually go where populations are highest but also a big part of it, I think is The liberal arts education at the AUB because we don't only take our sciences. We are forced to take some humanity social sciences and so on. And this course is quite open your eyes because I took a [00:25:00] course for example in Arabic all about the Lebanese civil wars. And History for example here in Lebanon in high school it stops at independence and they don't teach what happens after because they're scared it might propagate another cycle of violence and so on. But education is quite important and definitely can be done in a way that does not actually propagate violence and explains to the students what happened and if you don't learn what happened before, how are you not? It's gonna repeat again and again.

Jane_Houng: Look at what's happening now.

Mansour Saliba: Yeah, so that course opened my eye a lot to Lebanon and its history and what's going on. And after completing the ABA, because ABA stresses a lot on the importance of staying here. After gaining maybe skills abroad, it's okay to go abroad and to learn and after like recognizing the limitations of Lebanon and what it doesn't have. So I would say my personal background from coming but also the AUB education was quite also an important aspect in me recognizing the importance of giving back to my community and to my country.

Jane_Houng: And also to the Americans maybe, right? They originally set up this [00:26:00] university, it's USA that has given the grant and In an ideal world, you'd have lots of people who would feel that, it's an obligation is too strong a word, but to go back to your home country to contribute.

Mansour Saliba: Yeah.

Jane_Houng: Yes, well, let's see what happens. There's a huge world out there and there'll be so many opportunities, I believe to young men like you. Let's talk about becky's button for a moment in terms of Lebanon and in terms of for me. You know me a little bit better now. You know, bereaved mother, lost my daughter here. I'm trying to make an impact on gender based violence. And that's to do with the fact that actually the root of violence is men. And it's a lack of respect for women. And the gender equality issues here. Do you have any advice for me, let's say for the next five years? Or is that too big a subject?

Mansour Saliba: I think it's too big, but I'm going to try my best. [00:27:00] Based on our project, and so I helped back Becky's Button at the Beirut Marathon for distributing buttons, and also I did the project at Baalbek, and I felt like there was an immense difference between the let's say the people in Beirut have access to education and so on and they know about these things and the people there who maybe didn't know a lot of stuff. And I felt like the impact in in Baalbek was like way higher. So maybe my advice for the next five years within Lebanon is to not be afraid to let's say spread the network of Becky's Button outside Beirut to go you've been to Tripoli before now there's Baalbek and to go to all of these rural areas where I feel like the implementation will have its most impact and also to which we're trying to do right now is to start with young individuals maybe at school at university. And to not just go to like I say an NGO that just goes distributes these buttons and okay now we're done. But with let's say at AUB us as students just one conference presentation. We said that I created this ripple effect [00:28:00] where students are asking about it professors instructors. And it also is a really good subject for research, right? Like, what is the impact of a very small button? Is it effective? Because if we don't do research, how are we going to know that all of the buttons that we're distributing are actually being effective or they're just in a drawer somewhere with nobody using them? So maybe like a cohort study for like some years done, like let's say in the next five years with collaboration with universities that can give us some evidence based data because interventions at the end have to be evidence based. So that's my advice . Maybe like collect evidence from the people that Becky's Button is helping to see how to move forward and also to to engage with the academic community and with the university students and school students.

Jane_Houng: Thank you very much for that advice. I am listening. And thank you very much for implementing this project so successfully.

Mansour Saliba: Thank you.

Jane_Houng: I have a feeling that you and I are always going to be in touch. I'm particularly interested if you come to the UK, for [00:29:00] example, because although I've lived in Hong Kong for ages, I do go back to the UK. I have family there. I have a remaining daughter there. And yeah, I'm British. So all the very best Mansour and thank you for being on this podcast.

Mansour Saliba: Thank you so much for inviting me and good luck for the future of Becky's Button.

Jane_Houng: Thanks again for listening to Mending Lives with me, Jane Houng. It was produced by Brian Hou. You can find relevant links to this show in the comments section. I would not, could not be doing this without many people's support and encouragement. So, until next time, [00:30:00] goodbye.