Lebanon has been facing a severe energy crisis for the past 30 years at least. With a community of energy experts, and on the backdrop of recent protests for economic and political reforms, RELIEF has been working with key partners and advisors to deliver a future Citizen Assembly on Electricity in Hamra in the last quarter of this year. Many citizen assemblies have taken place in Western contexts, and have found resurgent popularity in the wake of climate emergency. The citizen assembly is a novel idea in the Middle East, and in Lebanon in particular. The delivery team in Lebanon has undertaken much learning, translation and adaptation of the citizen assembly concept. After consultation and testing, we have translated ‘Citizen Assembly’ as majlis madani in Arabic invoking the idea of a civic forum that would be inclusive of everyone and not just citizens. We began with the need to raise public awareness about what a citizen assembly is using videos in Arabic.
Working with designer Muana Sabah and animator, Tariq Keblaoui, this is a short video to explain the concept of a citizen assembly, it’s structure, and key principles so that participants and the general public can envisage what a Citizen Assembly is.
The video will be used for social media communication, WhatsApp and will be shown at the beginning of the citizen assembly.