Green Doueir, Clever Doueir

Funded by the EU and implemented in collaboration with the City of Doueir, a town in the Governorate of Nabatieh in Southern Lebanon, this project, developed within the Med-O-Med framework, aims at improving the environmental health of the city. And this, by working on two fronts: waste management and the awareness building on issues related to the protection of the environment.

Doueir’s lack of an effective urban waste management plan is being tackled from many angles: improvement of the human and technical capacities, purchase of adequate machinery, refocus of the agreement with the company responsible for the garbage removal, lectures and training programmes.

The awareness campaign is especially focused on young students and women through specific lectures and workshops on environmental principles, waste sorting and composting, as well as tree plantation and cleaning campaigns or a series of lectures targeting farmers on conservation agriculture. In addition, the project has produced an environmental guide which will be distributed among its citizens and Doueir will host a Med-O-Med exhibition that emphasises traditional gardens from al-Andalus and the Islamic perspective of environmental ethics.

Environmental Activities

During the duration period of the project, the following activities were organized:

1. Studies to identify an appropriated strategy to manage urban waste and improve the environmental conditions.
2. Capacity building aimed to the Municipality members and technicians, in topics related to the environmental protection and urban waste management.
3. Awareness campaign based in environment protection and general hygiene maintaining addressed to all residents especially for housekeepers, student school, professional producing special waste.
4. Education activities and environmental workshops to develop in schools (contacting NGO´s or local associations).
5. Capacity building oriented to teachers, NGO’s staff u other people working on education issues.
6. Exhibitions from Med-O-Med aimed to raise awareness on the population.
7. Workshops focused on women collectives aimed to improve the domestic economy.
8. A guide untitled “Environmental management of solid waste and the production of compost from organic material” has been distributed to the citizens.

After the implementation period (from December 2011 to June 2013) Med-O-Med and the Municipality of Doueir aspire to share best practice with other Lebanese towns.