وعي في بيروت

Last night in Beirut, over 200 people attended our empowering mental health awareness event at the American University of Beirut. Many congratulations to the brave young speakers who dared to share their own personal struggles with mental illness to help open minds and save lives. It was touching to see such a large audience interested in hearing about an issue rarely spoken about in public in Lebanon.

My inspiration for creating this event and group came from an unexpected source. While preparing to teach a workshop on physical disability in Lebanon, I asked the Lebanese sponsors of the event if I should discuss mental illness too. “In Lebanon,” my host said, “we don’t see mental illness as a disability, and we never talk about in public because it brings shame.” As a mental health advocate and disability activist for over a decade, his words got me thinking about the lack of mental health advocacy and discourse in Lebanon. Since I had directed mental health awareness programs in the United States while a student at Brown, I began to wonder if a similar program of empowerment might work in Beirut. But I knew I couldn’t do it alone–so I consulted several of my former students to see if they would be interested in raising awareness about mental health in Lebanon too. And with that, a movement was born. For the name of our group, we chose the Arabic word WA3I/وعي (“awareness”) to broadcast our message and mission. We’re very grateful that so many attendees found our event last night inspirational and educational–it’s the first of many more to come! To join or learn more about WA3I, please contact wa3ilebanon@gmail.com.