Lylot youth project to protect women from violence through technology

An Nahar newspaper published a report on a group formed of 12 young women and men who launched the Lylot youth programme to support the rights of women and that is after they participated in a series of workshops within the framework of the “Tomorrow’s Young Leaders in Lebanon” which was initiated by the An Nahar youth page in collaboration with the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung.  The report noted that the youth group chose to go ahead with this initiative given the importance of the subject matter and given what women go through in terms of violations that are condoned by society.  One member of the group, Jad Sham, told An Nahar that women’s issues are quite complex especially in the absence of laws that protect women and safeguard their rights.  He added that starting from this fact; they have tried to come up with an initiative that is entirely different from what is currently implemented by other organisations or individual initiatives.  Sham noted that his project has two components.  The first is related to parliamentary elections but is postponed for the moment as the elections were postponed.  The second part deals with the issue of violence against women and how to use technology to protect women from violence.  For this, they devised an application for smart phones that victims can use to locate their position and inform of a situation of abuse in a confidential manner.  He added that coordination is on-going with civil society organisations as well as with law enforcement to complete this project which will cost USD 16,000 and for which the group is trying to raise funds.
Source: Al-Nahar 26 September 2013