OLJ / By Lamia SFEIR DAROUNI, June 18, 2026

Today, young people face complex challenges that affect various aspects of their daily lives and can have significant consequences for their personal and professional development. Whether it is time management, integration into society, daily difficulties or the proliferation of hate messages on social media, these young people need support, guidance and often advice. USJ understood that. Through Opération 7e jour (O7), the University, which seeks to form active citizens acting as changemakers in the development of Lebanon, tries by all means to ensure their well-being by offering them solutions to the problems that surround them.

“We started by contacting the heads of the six Cells that constitute O7: economics, architecture, technology, business administration, languages and translation, and law,” explains Petra Khazaal, a third-year marketing and advertising student at USJ and volunteer at O7. After several discussions with the heads of the Cells, six themes that concern young people the most were selected for the campaign: “Controlling the burdens of everyday life,” “Protecting oneself in a fragile world,” “Forging one’s path in times of crisis,” “Sort out the truth in fake news,” “The keys to modern cyber protection,” and “Knowing your rights is your right.”

“The role of this campaign is to raise awareness and inform any young person who wants to find solutions to an issue that bothers them, without necessarily being a USJ student,” Petra Khazaal points out. “Posts are published every week on O7’s social media, including warnings to avoid falling into the traps of these problems, tips for overcoming them, and subsequently, references they can review if needed or if they wish to delve deeper into the subject. Often, by checking these posts, young people realize that they are experiencing the situation mentioned without being aware of it. Reading these posts helps them a lot.”

In the first post launched at the beginning of May, “Learning to control the weight of everyday life,” advice is offered to young people on how to better prioritize their basic needs, by creating an emergency fund or finding additional income such as, for example, selling unused items or using a budget application that will help them track their expenses every day. Other posts provide them with advice on “protecting themselves in a fragile world” and refer to the risks faced in homes: monitoring the appearance of cracks in balconies, regularly having electrical installations checked by professionals, not intervening yourself on the installations themselves (such as electricity or gas), etc. Other posts address the dangers of the ever-changing media landscape, in which fake news and misinformation proliferate at an alarming rate. Advice, such as the need to check the credibility of the account by being wary of content with no clear or identifiable reference, to consult several independent sources, and above all not to relay information without full validation, is then suggested to “sort out the truth in fake news.”

Recognizing the difficulties these young people face in navigating their way in an increasingly globalized and diverse world, the theme “Navigating in times of crisis” provides them with advice that allows them to optimize their personal resources by developing their network and multiplying professional experiences, in order to strengthen their image and better prepare for their integration into the professional world that awaits them. Regarding the issue of the “keys to modern cyberprotection,” prepared in collaboration with the Languages and Translation Cell, advice such as using strong passwords or verifying the website address, or even launching an antivirus scan while monitoring suspicious signs, is also offered. In order to address the legal issues these students may face, the post “Knowing your rights is your right” suggests that they consult the emergency hotline of the USJ Legal Dispensary, launched in 2011 as part of O7 by the Law Cell, which will provide them with the necessary legal assistance.

Also read: « Naviguons la crise ensemble » : une campagne numérique lancée par l’Opération 7e jour de l’USJ