The Outreach & Leadership Academy (OLA) is an educational and cultural center aiming at educating, empowering, and engaging local communities, particularly in South Lebanon, by providing free capacity building training programs, civic engagement activities, and touristic activities.

OLA is housed in the 18th-century Dar Ali Hammoud Palace in Saida’s Historic District, later turned into the Aisha Heritage School. The school site, abandoned since the 1950’s and used as a hub of drug trafficking during the civil war, was restored by Hariri Foundation for Sustainable Human Development to become an educational hub that contributes to the community’s social transformation.

The academy was later established in 2015 as a beacon of civic engagement and social responsibility upon the strategic partnership agreement between Hariri Foundation for Sustainable Human Development and the Lebanese American University.

OLA’s mission is to counter all forms of violence and extremism through education and to promote civic engagement, social awareness, leadership, and citizenship. OLA has played a key role in poverty alleviation in Saida’s historic district by equipping locals with employability skills, creating job opportunities, and breaking the stereotype of insecurity in the district.