During his years at the Lebanese Red-Cross, Dimyanos Kattar (Damien) developed a structure for national emergency and first aid action. He gave a special attention to the quality of volunteer recruits, their selection and training.

After only few years spent as head of First Aid Teams, Kattar had already set solid organizational foundations as well as advanced training programs for team and sector leaders.

The young leaders’ program comprised courses on problem solving, decision making, leadership, negotiation, communication, group dynamics, organization and planning, in addition to Red-Cross humanitarian principles. Kattar used to deliver this course personally over a full weekend seminar. That’s how many volunteers got to know him better in the late eighties.

With his high stature and imposing presence, Kattar was generous in sharing his knowledge with everyone. His exceptional charisma commands respect. His attention to the response of participants made him unveil the potentials of the young benevolent members and prepare them for higher responsibilities. Kattar wanted all participants to know that if they are selected to assume a leadership role, that doesn’t mean they will keep this role forever. At the end of every seminar he used to write on the board:

That very same sentence is engraved today at the entrance of “Grand Serail”, the siege of Lebanon’s Prime Minister.

In the early nineties, Damien had to hand-over his responsibilities to another qualified volunteer as he was getting ready for a professional career path abroad. He was mainly concerned about preparing qualified trainees to continue disseminating the leadership program he had developed. All seven people selected for this mission had the opportunity to get to know Damien much better as a mentor, a role model and a leader by example.

Few years later, and after climbing the echelons of hierarchy in private enterprises, Kattar chose to come back to Lebanon. Before leaving the organization he had successfully grown and developed he made sure one more time to secure a smooth transition over several months.

At that stage of his life, Dimyanos Kattar felt it was time to start an academic and public service mission while continuing to provide economic and private business consultations on selected projects as a mean to maintain a respectable living standard for his family.

New challenges, managing change, diversity and sense of duty are the driving forces of Kattar. As he has declared publicly on several occasions, the role of competent individuals in any organization should be specific and time bound. The day individuals in the public or private sectors start thinking of maintaining their jobs and positions, they loose all their capability to produce change, reform and make a difference.

This is the last topic in the series of “Dimyanos Kattar Daily Topic”. At the eve of presidential elections, May all the goodwill and good intentions of citizens all over Lebanon who believe in this nation, act silently and peacefully to bring to an end all the tensions we have been going through for months and years.

On behalf of all your friends and supporters: “Good Luck Damien…”

Hady Nassif

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 21st, 2007 at 11:40 pm and is filed under Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.