As planned, unemployed graduates in Lebanon headed on February 8th to the Grand Serail to hang their university degrees on the Wall of Shame.
This was an attempt to shed light on the issues of unemployment in Lebanon and the bitter reality that education degrees have become useless in the country.
The two young men, Marc and Rudy, who are using their degrees to sell Saj for lack of employment launched this week this initiative that was answered by many.
Many printed out their degrees and plastered it on the wall on Saturday. Those who couldn’t make it from across Lebanon sent images of their degrees to Marc and Rudy to print out and hang them on the wall for them.
“We decided to create a collection of those degrees and hang it on the wall across the Grand Serail to show the system and the whole world what we’re going through!” said Marc Darido and Rudy Hanna.
Both Marc and Rudy have already plastered their degrees on the side of the stove at Thawra Saj and again today at the Grand Serail.
Unemployment has increased dramatically in the past few months with a deteriorating economic situation, and not only among the youth.
According to two surveys conducted by InfoPro, the number of unemployed Lebanese has now reached 200,000 since October, 60,000 of which lost their jobs since the end of November.
This move by the unemployed youth aimed to show that no matter the years and money you invest in your education in Lebanon, it is a dead-end since there are no job opportunities and no responsible state to attend to the matter.
Marc and Rudy have shown the world Lebanese people’s unwavering strength to continue in this corrupt reality. Thus the Wall of Shame turned today into the Wall of Qualifications shaming the state with its status quo.
These degrees hanged now in downtown Beirut as a memorial of all the years of hard work and money spent on an education that led the youth to nothing but unemployment, more struggles, broken dreams, and more resistance to avoid emigrating.
For those who haven’t managed yet to hang a copy of their degrees on that wall, they can still do so. The problem isn’t over. The outcry is still on.
