Turning passion into dialogue, and disagreement into constructive engagement.
LEAD Lebanon equips active young people and civic actors with practical skills in leadership, negotiation, mediation and conflict management — delivered through simulation, role-play and real casework, not lectures. Part of the EU-funded project «Inclusive Democratic Participation: Strengthening Education, Participation and Oversight in Lebanon».
Cascade reach at a glance
Who We Are
The people and partners behind LEAD Lebanon.
ECES
The European Centre for Electoral Support is the implementing partner and originator of the LEAD methodology — an ECES flagship approach that equips those closest to democratic life with practical skills to lead, negotiate, mediate, and prevent or manage conflict.
ACRLI
The Arab Center for the Development of the Rule of Law and Integrity is the lead applicant and national partner, grounding the programme in Lebanon's legal and civic context.
Funded by the European Union
Delivered within the EU-funded project «Inclusive Democratic Participation: Strengthening Education, Participation and Oversight in Lebanon» (Sawtak). Aligned with the EU Results Framework, OPSYS reporting and Results-Based Management principles.
What LEAD stands for
Leadership and Conflict Management Skills for Electoral StAkeholDers. In Lebanon the programme has been reframed around lowering everyday societal tension — using the same techniques that resolve electoral disputes to keep disagreement from hardening into division.
Our objective
Overall: contribute to peaceful, inclusive and democratic electoral processes in Lebanon, and promote democratic values and inclusive participation nationwide.
Specific: strengthen leadership and electoral conflict-management capacities among electoral stakeholders.
What We Do
An intensive, experiential method — rehearsed, not merely heard.
Leadership
Building confidence and agency so young people can lead change within their own communities rather than wait for it to arrive from elsewhere.
Negotiation & Mediation
Principled negotiation and structured mediation to resolve disputes and build agreement across difference.
Conflict Management
Reading conflict by type and trigger, de-escalation, and turning friction into constructive engagement.
Dialogue & Active Listening
Listening as a core skill — taught through role-play — and the discipline of persuasion over raised voices.
Countering Misinformation
Telling true from false, the misinformation/disinformation distinction, and how the brain reads others as threat or friend.
Advocacy & Coalition-Building
Team-building, buy-in and the fundamentals of responsible advocacy campaigns for the public interest.
How it is delivered
Built on simulations, real casework and peer exchange, delivered by certified facilitators, and designed so learning is rehearsed under pressure — culminating in the integrated «Circle of Light» (دائرة نور) simulation that puts every skill to work at once.
Training of Trainers (ToT)
The trained core from which every cascade session extends.
LEAD ToT — Lebanon
A national cohort of trainers was certified on the LEAD methodology and equipped with a purpose-built Trainer's Kit (trainer's manual + PowerPoints) to standardise content and quality across every cascade wave. Participants were drawn from Beirut, Mount Lebanon (Kesrwan, Zalka, Aley), the North (Tripoli, Akkar, Dinniyeh), the Bekaa (Baalbek, Hermel), Nabatieh and beyond.
Cascade Sessions
Successive three-day rounds carrying LEAD outward from the trained core to communities across Lebanon.
Tripoli North
First cascade round in the North, concentrated in Tripoli with reach into Akkar.
Baalbek Bekaa
A young Bekaa cohort — ages ranging from 20 into the late-30s.
Aley Mount Lebanon · 4th District
Mount Lebanon round centred on Aley, but the room pulled in from well beyond the district — Beirut, the Metn and Kesrwan, and as far as Hermel and Akkar. Near gender parity (10 M / 9 W). See Age Groups for the demographic breakdown.
Chtoura – Mekseh Bekaa · Zahle Full M&E
The most fully evaluated round — matched pre/post assessment, confidence and reception data. See Statistics.
Participants per rostered round
Topics & Sessions
The three-day arc — from the individual, to the pair, to the collective.
Day 1 — Opening & Foundations
Opening the room and building trust across a wide age range; open hearts and mutual respect for differing opinions; the electoral-justice grounding.
Trust-buildingMutual respectElectoral justiceDay 2 — Listening & Truth
Active listening as the central skill, taught through role-play; the mechanics of misinformation vs disinformation; body language and how the brain reads others as threat or friend; conflict styles.
Active listeningMis/disinformationBody languageConflict stylesDay 3 — From Individual to Collective
Diagnosing conflict by type and trigger; team-building; coalition-building and buy-in; advocacy-campaign fundamentals; closing with the integrated «Circle of Light» (دائرة نور) simulation.
Conflict diagnosisCoalition-buildingAdvocacyCircle of LightAge Groups
A deliberately cross-generational room — the age spread has proved an asset for dialogue exercises.
Chtoura cohort — age bands (n = 27)
Range 16–59, mean 30. Fifteen of 27 sit inside the 20–35 target band; the tails (6 under 20, of whom 2 under 18; 6 over 35) are tracked for eligibility and safeguarding.
Gender balance — Chtoura (n = 27)
15 women / 12 men — a slightly female-leaning, gender-balanced cohort.
Aley cascade — demographics
Full roster n = 19 (14 cascade participants + 5 semi-certified ToT), delivered 28 Feb 2026. Age, gender and location are recorded in the roster; education and occupation were not captured in this cohort’s sheet.
Age bands (n = 19)
Range 23–52, mean 35, median 32. The cohort clusters in the 30s (9 of 19), with a healthy 20s presence (5) and a mature tail of five aged 40+.
Gender (n = 19)
10 men / 9 women — near parity, the most balanced rostered round so far.
Geographic reach — by governorate
Mostly Mount Lebanon (14) — Aley itself 8, plus Sawfar, Armon, Ain Anon, Sin al-Fil, Metn and Kesrwan — with 3 from Beirut and single participants travelling in from Hermel and Akkar.
Cohort composition
14 cascade trainees alongside 5 semi-certified ToT attendees deepening their accreditation in the room.
Target band
The programme targets active Lebanese youth aged 20–35. Across rounds the room has intentionally stretched wider, which facilitators recorded as adding depth and mutual respect to the dialogue work rather than detracting from it.
Statistics & Learning Outcomes
Matched pre/post evaluation of the Chtoura cascade (C02) — 27 attended, 20 post-tests, 19 matched pairs.
Knowledge & confidence — before vs after
Baseline knowledge by item (n = 27)
Green ≥ 70% · gold 50–69% · red < 50%. Weak points — polarising speech (33%) and the electoral system (48%) — are exactly what Days 2–3 target.
Verdict — partial success, leaning positive
| Indicator | Result | Benchmark | Read |
|---|---|---|---|
| Matched pre/post pairs | 19 of 27 (70%) | ≥ 80% | below |
| Mean knowledge, pre → post | 65.4% → 73.7% (+8.3) | — | gain |
| Normalized gain (g) | 0.19–0.24 | ≥ 0.30 | below |
| Cohen's d (paired) | 0.35 | ≥ 0.50 | below |
| Statistical significance (Wilcoxon) | p ≈ 0.15 | < 0.05 | below |
| Mastery rate (post ≥ 70%) | 74% (14 of 19) | ≥ 60% | MET |
| Self-efficacy shift | 2.85 → 4.36 (+1.50) | ≥ +0.8 | MET |
| Participant reception | 4.72 / 5 | — | MET |
| Test reliability (KR-20, 7 items) | 0.49 (indicative) | ≥ 0.70 | below |
The confidence and mastery results — not the knowledge p-value on a short seven-item screen — are the stronger evidence of impact.
Analysis
Combined pre → post knowledge gains, and the arc of topics covered since the Training of Trainers.
Combined gain — before vs after
All three headline measures moved in the intended direction. Confidence and mastery are the strongest signals; the knowledge gain is real but modest on a short seven-item screen.
Where the gain concentrated
The two teachable gaps the baseline flagged are exactly where movement showed: the collaboration-vs-compromise conflict style (a Day-2 focus) and recognising polarising speech (which opens Day 3). Items already near the ceiling on entry — that conflict is natural (93%), responding to a crisis rumour (93%), the misinformation/disinformation distinction (81%) — had little room to rise.
Reception was high (4.72/5), and the cross-generational room was recorded by facilitators as an asset for the dialogue exercises across all three days.
Main topics covered since the ToT
From the trainer core outward to the cascade communities.
1 · Foundations — the ToT (Feb 2026)
The LEAD methodology laid down for the trainer cohort: leadership; negotiation; mediation; conflict resolution — integrated with emotional intelligence and stress management — plus democratic values (transparency, accountability, inclusion) and the grounding in electoral justice and electoral rights. Delivered as a 15-module Trainer’s Kit.
LeadershipNegotiationMediationEmotional intelligenceElectoral justice2 · Listening & truth — cascade Day 2
Active listening as the central skill, taught through role-play; the misinformation vs disinformation distinction; body language and how the brain reads others as threat or friend; the collaboration-vs-compromise conflict styles.
Active listeningMis/disinformationBody languageConflict styles3 · From individual to collective — cascade Day 3
Diagnosing conflict by type and trigger; team-building; coalition-building and buy-in; the fundamentals of responsible advocacy campaigns — closing with the integrated «Circle of Light» (دائرة نور) simulation that puts every skill under pressure at once.
Conflict diagnosisCoalition-buildingAdvocacyCircle of LightCross-cutting — the reframing
Throughout, LEAD in Lebanon shifted from a narrow electoral-disputes focus to the mitigation of everyday societal tension: the same techniques — structured listening, accurate conflict diagnosis, principled negotiation — applied to keep disagreement from hardening into division, with dialogue as the primary remedy.
Societal-tension mitigationDialogue as remedyPhotos & Videos
Moments from the training rooms across Lebanon — Beirut, Baalbek and Chtoura. Aley photos to follow.
Reports & Documents
The programme's reporting and knowledge products.
M&E Report — February 2026
Executive Monitoring & Evaluation summary for the ToT and first cascade, aligned with the EU Results Framework and OPSYS. Prepared by Aous Qutaishat, ECES Lebanon.
Cascade Strategic Analysis (EN)
Strategic reading of the concluded three-day Chtoura round — what was delivered, its significance, and next steps.
Chtoura Pre/Post Evaluation Report
Matched pre/post learning evaluation of cohort C02 — profile, learning gains, confidence shift, reception and verdict.
Policy Paper — Electoral Law Alignment
Analysis of Lebanon's electoral law alignment with international standards.
دليل العدالة الانتخابية للشباب
Youth Electoral-Justice Guide (Arabic) — the contextualised training reference.
Session rosters & scoring workbooks
Tripoli, Baalbek and Chtoura participant rosters and the pre/post scoring workbook.
Live Data — Google Drive
Source materials pulled from your Drive. This dashboard is refreshed from the folder below.
Tracked files
| File | Type | Last modified | Open |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pre-assessment — knowledge (general) | Form | 21 Jul 2026 | open |
| Keen 20/7 (Chtoura) — pre-assessment | Form | 20 Jul 2026 | open |
| Keen 20/7 (Chtoura) — responses | Sheet | 22 Jul 2026 | open |
| Keen 20/7 (Chtoura) — post-assessment | Form | 28 Jul 2026 | open |
| YIA — pre-assessment | Form | 18 Jul 2026 | open |
| Akkar — pre-assessment new | Form | 31 Jul 2026 | open |
| LEAD-Leb Phase 2 — February | Folder | 21 Jul 2026 | open |
An Akkar cascade round is in preparation — its pre-assessment form went live on 31 Jul 2026. Once its responses come in, I'll add it to Cascade Sessions and Statistics.
Phase 1 — ToT & first cascade Feb 2026
Shared folder LEAD ToT — the trainer's kit and first-cascade records.
| Item | Type | Contents | Open |
|---|---|---|---|
| LEAD Material — Trainer's Kit | Folder | 15 chapter decks (Intro + Ch. 1–15) | open |
| Beirut ToT — photos | Folder | Training pictures | open |
| Beirut ToT — attendance | Folder | Signed attendance sheets | open |
| Baalbek Training — photos | Folder | Training pictures | open |
| Baalbek — certificates | Sheet | Baalbek training certificates | open |
| Lebanon LEAD ToT — certificate | Certification of the ToT | open |
The Beirut and Baalbek Training pictures folders are real photos — say the word and I'll pull a selection into the Photos & Videos gallery.
Admin Panel
Manage content, headline numbers and connections.
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Use the upload buttons on the Photos & Videos and Reports pages to add items live.
Google Drive Connected
Linked to LEAD-Leb Second Cascade phase. Last synced 31 Jul 2026, 13:17. See Live Data (Drive).