The Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) has published a regional research carried out among refugee and local youth across the Middle East showing how complex legal and economic barriers across the region stunt their development. The research is accompanied by a short Lebanon-focused report, highlighting the key challenges faced by refugee youth in the country: access to legal stay, limited access to work and education, as well as pervasive undercurrent of violence affecting their lives in both public and personal spheres.
The research, A Future in the Balance: How Conflict in Syria is Impacting on the Needs, Concerns and Aspirations of Young People Across the Middle East and the accompanying A Future in the Balance: Lebanon, were conducted throughout the final quarter of 2015.
“Refugee youth are struggling with structural challenges such as lack of legal stay and unemployment. These are fundamental problems that need to be addressed in order to create an enabling and conducive environment for the youth to gradually grow into productive adulthood,” says Marta Schena, NRC Lebanon Education Specialist.
“Tailored education programmes can help the youth re-gain bits of their adolescence, re-build trust in themselves and their capacities and hope for a better future.”
