BEIRUT: Young Lebanese volunteers are set to participate next month in social projects around the country funded by Italy, in a bid to spread the spirit of volunteering and help the country’s needy.

Lebanon will sign a memorandum of understanding with Italy in September to continue social projects funded by Italy, Minister of Social Affairs Wael Abu Faour said Tuesday.

Speaking during a news conference alongside representatives from the Italian government and the Italian Embassy in Beirut, Faour said the aim of the social projects is to provide an effective role for Lebanese youth.

“To nationalize the idea of volunteering, we need the youth, schools, universities and the private sector to spread awareness on the importance of volunteering for social projects in the country,” said Abu Faour.

The projects will mainly focus on the rehabilitation of ports and fishing boats along the Lebanese coast and will be financed with 150,000 euros from the Italian government.

According to Abu Faour, initiatives for volunteering in social service are crucial to integrating groups who live in different areas in Lebanon.

Abu Faour also said that a series of development and social projects would kick off throughout the country to help the neediest. “Since the abolishing of the mandatory military service requirement, there has been no alternative presented by the Lebanese government,” he said.

Following demands by civil society groups and NGOs to amend the military service law, the mandatory military service requirement at the age of 18 was annulled by the Lebanese government in 2005.

Local NGOs argued that mandatory military service was costly and created for difficulties for Lebanese students.

But Abu Faour said that the military service was the only social service initiative by the government that brought Lebanese from different regions in the country together.

Come September, rehabilitation projects will be carried out in Bin Jbeil, Bekaa, Keserouan, Akkar, Beirut, Chouf, Sidon and Jezzine.

Abu Faour said that his ministry, in coordination with the Interior Ministry, will supervise the rehabilitation of prisons in Jezzine and Baalbek.

“It is one of our goals to stimulate inter-ministerial work within Lebanon that could serve the society better,” said Guido Benevento, the director of the Italian Cooperation for Development in Lebanon.