UCL-Lebanon: 30 Years of Friendship

Le recteur de l'UCL et l'ambassadeur du Liban

UCL and Lebanon celebrate thirty years of friendship. In 1979, Lebanese students offered the Faculty of Medicine a young cedar of Lebanon, national symbol of their county. The tree was planted at the heart of the Brussels campus. A commemorative plaque marking this anniversary now forms another tangible remembrance of this privileged relationship.

The anniversary ceremony was attended by the UCL authorities and the ambassador of Lebanon, Mr Adnan Mansour. Over the past 30 years, the famous cedar has grown into a magnificent tree and is of great symbolic value to the numerous Lebanese doctors that have settled in Belgium. Prof Gérine Elkhoury, cardiovascular surgeon at the Cliniques Saint-Luc, was a young medical student at the time: “Each time I pass this wonderful tree, I feel moved and very proud. This cedar has grown along with us, on the Brussels campus. It is a symbol of our attachment to our fatherland and over the past years has been a witness to our personal and internal growth within our host University.” The event was also an occasion to highlight the close ties that UCL maintains with several universities in Beirut. (A.M.)

Photo: Hugues Depasse

| 30/04/2009 |