Nour Nasr a peacebuilder from Lebanon believes in listening as a path to understanding
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As a young peacebuilder, Nour Nasr (27) from Kfarfaqoud in Lebanon’s Al‑Shouf region, believes peacebuilding begins in everyday life. “This is achieved through listening, acknowledging pain, and creating spaces where difficult conversations can happen safely and honestly,” she explains1.
Today, as Program Coordinator for Hkeeli, an initiative that manages and activates Beit Beirut – a cultural space owned by the Municipality of Beirut and dedicated to preserving memory and fostering dialogue around the legacy of the Lebanese civil war (1975–1990) – Nour oversees exhibitions, school visits, storytelling, and community initiatives. She recently joined the Women Peacebuilders Network in Lebanon (WPNL), further strengthening her engagement in peacebuilding and dialogue initiatives across the country.
With the support of Canada and in partnership with Seeds for Legal Initiative, UN Women supports initiatives and women-led activities at Beit Beirut. Through Hkeeli, participants engage in storytelling, oral history, and collective reflection, bringing together youth and communities from across Lebanon to promote dialogue, preserve memory, strengthen social cohesion, and contribute to sustain peace.
Nour Nasr, 27, believes peacebuilding begins with listening. Through her work at Beit Beirut and Hkeeli, she helps create spaces for dialogue, storytelling, and collective reflection on Lebanon’s past. Photo: Nour Nasr
Although Nour did not live through the Lebanese civil war herself, she grew up surrounded by its stories and silences.
“In my family, conversations often began with: “Back then, during the civil war…” she recalls. “Some stories were funny, some heartbreaking, and some too heavy to fully understand, as a child.”
Growing up with inherited memories
Among the stories that stayed with her were stories of children fetching water under gunfire, families displaced overnight, and people who disappeared or were separated from loved ones.
“There were also stories of abducted women who returned carrying social stigma. Stories families avoided mentioning; entire subjects left unspoken out of fear or shame”
Her father was a fighter during the civil war and spent months imprisoned. The marks of those experiences, she says, remained visible long after the civil war ended.
One story, shared by her mother left a lasting impact. During the civil war, Nour’s grandfather handed her grandmother a gun and instructed her to kill the girls – and then herself – if armed men entered the house, believing it would preserve the family’s honor.
“My mother told me that, in that moment, she feared her own mother more than of the men outside,” Nour says.
For Nour, these inherited stories revealed that war destroys far more than buildings. It affects safety, childhood, dignity, and the meaning of home itself,” she explains
These stories made Nour question everything she thought she knew about Lebanon.
“I wanted to understand: How did neighbors become enemies? Why is this history missing from our schoolbooks? Why do we inherit memories without learning the full story?”
Through exhibitions, school visits, and community initiatives at Beit Beirut, Nour Nasr helps foster dialogue across generations, encouraging reflection on Lebanon’s past and pathways toward a more peaceful future. Photo: UN Women Lebanon/ Georges Roukoz
Listening as a path to understanding
That curiosity shaped eventually Nour’s path. A graduate of the Faculty of Media and Information at the Lebanese University, Nour worked with classmates on a graduation project documenting former fighters in Lebanon who now advocate for nonviolence and dialogue.
“It was one of the first times I heard people from different backgrounds speak openly about the civil war, regret, violence, and reconciliation,” she says. “I realized that no single community holds the entire truth.”
Listening became transformative. “Oral history taught me that wars are not only political events. They live on in people’s bodies, fears, and silences.”
For Nour avoiding painful histories from the past allows wounds to persist across generations.
Nour Nasr facilitates activities at Beit Beirut, where stories, memories, and lived experiences become opportunities for learning and connection across generations. Photo: Nour Nasr
Creating spaces for dialogue
Today, through her work at Beit Beirut and Hkeeli, Nour creates spaces where people can engage with difficult histories through storytelling, collective dialogue, and exhibitions. By bringing together school and university students, she encourages younger generations to reflect on the Lebanese civil war and its lasting impact.
Through intergenerational dialogue and exposure to diverse perspectives, these initiatives foster critical reflection on how the past continue to shape Lebanon’s present, while promoting dialogue, mutual understanding, and shared commitment to peaceful coexistence.
Sometimes, visitors arrive carrying inherited anger or fixed narratives and sometimes leave questioning rather than repeating certainties. “That matters,” she says.
For Nour, peacebuilding is not limited to political negotiations or formal agreements, but rather something deeply rooted in everyday human interaction.
At Beit Beirut, stories of Lebanon’s past echo through old walls marked by the civil war. Once a former frontline building during the Lebanese civil war, the museum today has become a space for dialogue, memory, and reflection. Photo: UN Women/ Georges Roukoz, 2025
The responsibility of younger generations
Nour believes Lebanon’s youth have an important role to play in shaping how the country engages with its past.
“We cannot change the past,” she says. “But we decide how we engage with it.”
For Nour, memory should foster understanding rather than division, reminding people of the human cost of violence and need for dialogue and accountability.
“Lebanon still has many notebooks left open,” Nour reflects. “But healing begins with truly listening to one another.”