The Dekwaneh Public Technical School continues to serve as a safe haven for displaced families. While this role is essential given the unstable security situation and evacuation of multiple areas in Lebanon, it has also placed significant pressure on the school’s facilities. Shared spaces such as bathrooms and common areas require urgent attention, while access to classrooms remains limited.
In response, Swisscontact, in partnership with Caritas Lebanon, launched PIONEER PLUS under the SILA programme. Building on an earlier pilot initiative, PIONEER, this new phase focuses on supporting targeted rehabilitation work at the school while placing students at the centre of the process.
What makes the initiative distinctive is not only what is being improved, but how the work is being carried out.
Before entering the worksite, students received preparatory training designed to build a shared safety culture and basic emergency response capacity. This included health and safety training, first aid training, and practical guidance on worksite readiness, helping students understand how to move, work, and respond in an active rehabilitation environment.
Shortly after this preparation, students began participating in hands-on rehabilitation activities inside designated areas of the school. Working under the guidance of trainers and teachers, they are applying their technical skills to practical tasks in accessible areas, including bathrooms and shared facilities, as well as electrical works in common spaces.
These are modest but meaningful improvements. In a school still affected by displacement, even small repairs can make a meaningful difference to the daily experience of students, teachers, and families sharing the space.
This approach allows students to connect theory to practice while actively contributing to improving their surroundings. It also reinforces a sense of responsibility, teamwork, and ownership, as they work within a space that continues to serve both educational and humanitarian needs.
PIONEER PLUS reflects a Triple Nexus approach by linking skills development, community recovery and social cohesion.
This connection is visible not only in the rehabilitation of work itself, but also in the collaboration surrounding it. On one occasion, vulnerable women participating in a different Caritas-supported initiative focusing on women empowerment prepared and served meals to the participating students. Their contribution added a human and communal dimension to the technical work, recognizing the students’ efforts and reinforcing the sense that recovery is built through many forms of participation.
Rather than standing as a separate activity, this moment captured the wider spirit of the project: different groups contributing in practical ways, each through their own skills and capacities. In this sense, PIONEER PLUS is not only supporting improvements to the school environment, but also creating opportunities for connection, cooperation, and mutual support across the community.
Participation is a key element of PIONEER PLUS. Through a PhotoVoice activity, students were invited to document their school environment from their own perspective. Using photography and voice messages, they identified the spaces they felt needed improvement and shared their concerns, priorities, and ideas.
This process gives students the platform to reflect on their surroundings and play an active role in shaping the initiative. It helps ensure that rehabilitation efforts respond to their daily reality and that their perspectives are part of the decision-making process.
Beyond technical training, the experience is also helping students build confidence, adaptability and a stronger sense of purpose. Working in a school that is still affected by displacement, they are learning how to navigate complexity while contributing to positive change. In a context marked by disruption, this combination is essential.
As PIONEER PLUS continues, activities will continue to adapt to the evolving situation at the Dekwaneh Public Technical School. By bringing together students, communities, trainers, and partners, the initiative is laying out the groundwork for gradual recovery in a place where education and displacement continue to intersect. Step by step, students are not only helping to improve their school. They are also helping to strengthen it as a space for learning, participation, and future opportunities.
This project is part of the Swisscontact Development Programme, which is co-financed by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), Federal Department of Foreign Affairs FDFA.