Following five consecutive successful years of the “Human Rights Trivia Competition,” the Department of Government and International Relations at the Faculty of Law and Political Science (FLPS), Notre Dame University-Louaize (NDU), in collaboration with the university’s Human Rights Club, organized on January 12 & 19, 2018, its 6th annual edition.
The objectives of this competition are to encourage students to research and learn new and important information, pertaining to human rights; information usually not taught in class, and to compete in a friendly environment with other peers from different schools in testing their information in this field.
This year, the main jury members were:
- Dr. Chady Hajjal: Lebanese Judge, Constitutional Expert; NDU Adjunct Professor
- Dr. Karim el Mufti: Director of the Human Rights Clinic at Sagesse University
- Ms. Olga Kavran: Head of the Outreach Department at the Special Tribunal for Lebanon
- Mr. Georges Ghali: Human Rights Activist and Executive Director at ALEF act for Human Rights
- Mr. Melkar El Khoury Awad: Human Rights Activist – Foundation of Human and Humanitarian Right
Each year, the number of participating schools continues to increase. The 6th edition hosted 21 schools, or about 150 students, who, with the help of their coordinators, competed against each other to test their basic knowledge in the most important and relevant human rights issues.
Due to the large number of participating schools, two separate training sessions were organized at the NDU main campus. The first took place on the November 3, 2017, and the second on November 24, 2017. The sessions served to inform students and their coordinators about the Trivia rules and regulations as well as to provide an opportunity to briefly discuss each of the topics selected for the competition, which were:
- Universal Declaration of Human Rights and International Human Rights Treaties;
- International Humanitarian Law;
- International Courts;
- Refugees Rights between International Norms and Reality; and
- Human Rights in Lebanon’s Constitution and Laws.
The schools then competed on January 12 in a first written round in two groups, with the three top ranking schools in each group qualifying to the second round.
The second oral round took place on January 19 in a very enthusiastic, competitive and educational environment. After two hours of tight competition, the winners were:
First: Saint Joseph School, Cornet Chahwan (SJS)
Second: Collège des Saints-Coeurs Kfarhbab
Third: Lycée Franco-Libanais Nahr Ibrahim
The winning schools received trophies and financial prizes.
A special thanks is due to the graduate assistants: Rebecca Zammar and Vanessa Khoury Mikhael as well as the Human Rights Club committee (Stephanie Abboud, Najib Dagher, Guila Challita, and Sevag Hadjekian) who assisted Dr. Elie el-Hindy in conducting the training sessions.