Arab News Japan

Japan will extend a grant to Lebanon’s Yeghishe Manoukian College (YMC), to install a solar panel system, through the Grant Assistance for Grassroots Human Security Program (GGP).

On February 27, Ambassador MAGOSHI Masayuki signed a grant contract with Hovannes Arslanian, General Manager of YMC.

Yeghishe Manoukian College (YMC), located in Dbayeh/Metn, provides basic education services for vulnerable students not only from the town but also other regions. Due to the economic crisis in Lebanon, the school had to reduce the number of students to half of its normal capacity as well as teaching hours, in order to decrease its operational costs, mainly the cost of fuel as it became very expensive to maintain generators due to shortage of national power supply.

Considering the need for affordable power supply and for green energy, Japan decided to provide YMC with a solar panel system, which will allow to

increase the number of students and provide improved learning environment.

At the signing ceremony, Ambassador MAGOSHI expressed Japan’s keenness to support the education sector and to provide green energy solutions amid the current economic and energy crises. For its part, YMC thanked the Japanese government for its support, and highlighted the importance of this assistance to improve the school’s quality of education.