BOX OUT: This New Campaign Seeks To Deter Lebanese Youth From Extremism
Living in a region that has long been burdened by the harsh violations and drastic repercussions of extremism has always been a challenge to Lebanese youth. In light of their perception of this reality and persistent eagerness to counter its societal impact, a group of Media students at NDU launched BOX OUT, an anti-extremism digital campaign that has been gaining traction on social media for the past few weeks.
Box Out team in NDU
To know more about the origins, essence and objectives of this distinctive campaign, Beirut.com reached out to one of the student organizers, Arsho Tenbelian, for an inside look.
Just like its name suggests, BOX OUT is a call for people to get out of the boxes and limitations of extremism. “The campaign is part of Peer2Peer challenge: Facebook Global Digital Challenge by EdVenture Partners, whereby university students are challenged to counter the pervasiveness of hate and extremism on social media in ways that are credible and authentic to their peers and communities,” Tenbelian explained.
“We chose BOX OUT as a name because it is a technical term used in basketball, where you prevent the opposing team from coming into your area and scoring. That is exactly what our campaign is about: to put extremism out of our area and create a defense mechanism that won’t allow extremism to come in in the future.”
Given the above name connotation and the impact of sports as a unifying passion among Lebanese youth, organizing students chose three prominent basketball players, Rony Fahed, Bassel Bawji and Amir Saoud, to be the main ambassadors of their campaign and opted for the crossed-arms gesture to be its symbol on social media.
Rony Fahed, Bassel Bawji and Amir Saoud in the Box Out Launching Conference
“So far we’ve had the support of the public through our activation plan, where people supported us by taking a picture with our X sign and posting on their social media to challenge others to join the movement in support of fighting extremism,” Tenbelian told Beirut.com. “Public figures and digital influencers also joined us.”
Box Out Launching Conference organizers, speakers, and attendees
Besides such popular support, BOX OUT has also been advocated by the Lebanese Ministry of Information as the Minister himself, Melhem Riachi, showed support by attending the campaign’s press conference launch on November 10, where he announced that ministry of is ready to support this campaign in every way possible.
Lebanese Minister of Information, Melhem Riachi, at the Box Out Launching Conference
“Through this campaign, we want to reach out to as many people as we can and create awareness that every individual can stand out for themselves and fight extremism both in their day-to-day life and online platform presence,” Tenbelian noted. “We also want to build a bridge between our target audience and Lebanese officials to have their thoughts and frustrations heard in the hopes of creating an action plan for the future.”
Lead by Media Studies lecturer Naoum Abi Adam under the mentorship of Chairperson of the Media Studies Department Dr. Maria Bou Zeid, BOX OUT operates under the slogan ‘Break down fear X Build up Tolerance’ in order to defy the fear factor imposed by extremism and prevent it by building up tolerance to all existing forms of extremism in the community, hence the creation of viral videos and social media posts that promote openness.
Besides coming up with daily social media content and an accompanying music video promoting tolerance and diversity within the Lebanese society, the campaign is conducting a series of social experiments based on exchanging ideologies through civic engagement and plans to further expand its activities towards giving a voice to people in marginalized areas.
Feeling motivated to counter extremism in your community? Join the BOX OUT challenge by posting your picture doing the X gesture and encouraging other people to tag along.
