The Directorate of Care Affairs and the Al-Mabarrat Graduates Association held an honorary lunch for 150 students who passed the general secondary certificate and the technical baccalaureate, under the patronage of Allama Sayyed Ali Fadlallah and in the presence of the president of the Al-Mabarrat Graduates Association Ahmad Al-Moussawi, a number of the board of friends of the graduates, and the directors of the association's teaching and care institutions, at the Lady Khadija Al-Kubra Mabarra - Airport Road.
The celebration opened with verses from the Holy Quran, followed by the Lebanese national anthem. After that came a speech from the Al-Mabarrat Graduates Association delivered by the association's president Mr. Ahmad Al-Moussawi, who stressed to those who had passed “the necessity of continuing their studies with excellence beyond the university degree, in a time floundering in difficulties and crises”, pointing to “the role of the Al-Mabarrat Graduates Association in following them up at the university stage and beyond graduation”, and calling on them “to take part in the opening of the Al-Mabarrat Graduates Association's centre and to benefit from it, and to be the first to volunteer in life, especially at the association's centre”.
Fadlallah
Allama Fadlallah then delivered a speech in which he said: “This success is what we watched for night and day so as to see you in this place, and you gave much until you reached what you are. Our happiness is great to see you in this place, having completed your secondary studies. All the fatigue and giving that was expended for you - a person feels its importance, because it was productive and profitable. This is what we hoped for from those who came before, and what we hope for from you, and you will continue with it, because we are with you: we and the Graduates Association, who carry this concern after the administrations of the institutions from which you graduated carried it.”
He added: “We expect from you fidelity to these institutions, and we expect you to continue the journey - the journey of knowledge and fidelity; to work to be a distinctive mark in every place you will be, at university and at work, and in openness to others and to life.”
Fadlallah stressed the importance of the relationship with God, saying: “We want you to be a distinctive mark in faith and in the relationship with God, and people of the religion that is open to life and makes a person good - because when a person reaches the summit in worship, they become one who strives in the service of people and works for their society, their nation and their homeland.”
He continued: “We must live planning for the future in a country in which a person finds no opportunity for a dignified life. How many educated people find no job opportunities? We must not despair, and must not think that this life is closed; we must bear the responsibility of this homeland and strive to carry it to the shore of safety, because it will not change except through the determination of its people.”
He added: “We accept nothing from you but distinction, because we know you have all the means that qualify you to be distinguished. So make others need you, and meet your own needs without having to go to this person or that.”
He stressed that “the state must bear its responsibilities towards these numbers of graduates who find no place to work and to serve their country, so that the greater part of them take the initiative of emigrating”, calling for “haste in forming the government and preparing an economic plan to lift the country up and to absorb the Lebanese young people graduating from the universities, instead of the continuation of all this haemorrhage in the departure of brains and specialists”.
He concluded by saying: “We want this gathering to be a gathering of joy, because we meet with you and always want you in the places of excellence and distinction; and we await you when you graduate from the universities into life - Al-Mabarrat awaits you, and its doors are always open to you.”
In closing, gifts were distributed to the graduates and commemorative photographs were taken.
