The next Changemaker Challenge reaches students across Lebanon

A wider invitation

In July 2026, Lebanon’s Ministry of Education and Higher Education circulated the 2026 Rebecca Dykes Changemaker Challenge to secondary schools and to public and private universities across the country. Becky’s Button was named as the organiser, with support from the British Embassy in Beirut and the British Council.

The British Embassy also invited students in Lebanon aged 16 to 21 to take part. For Becky’s Button, that reach matters because the Challenge is designed to create a route for young people to examine the behaviours and attitudes that sit behind violence against women and girls — and to develop responses grounded in the realities of their own communities.

The people from 2025 came back

The next cycle was not being built from scratch. Ten of the twelve people screening entries for the 2026 Challenge had themselves come through the 2025 round. Five of the fourteen 2025 finalists also returned to help shape the theme and screen new entries.

That progression is one of the clearest ways to understand the Challenge: participation does not have to end when a competition cycle closes. Young people can return as contributors, peer leaders and organisers, carrying knowledge and experience into the next stage.

From participation to action

Five young people who came through the 2025 Challenge went on to deliver their own VAWG workshops in Lebanon. Eight Lebanese students also joined the first Becky’s Button Changemaker Programme cohort for structured training in safeguarding, VAWG prevention, intersectionality, misogyny awareness, and PR and media skills.

The numbers matter, but the deeper story is continuity: young people entering, returning, contributing and creating activity of their own.