Lebanon Trust helps 256 refugee families

At the beginning of August this year, in a particularly difficult moment for Lebanon (due to the huge explosion that rocked the city on August 4th) we sent 5000 dollars to our partner Association Najdeh. With this money, they prepared 256 food parcels, for as many families in the refugee camps of Shatila and Burj El Barajneh. The families were Palestinian refugees, refugees from Syria and local Lebanese, chosen among the poorest – especially those headed by single mothers, or with special-needs children.

The content was entirely purchased locally. The parcels were distributed over the course of several days, along with some printed material about how people can protect themselves from the coronavirus. In total, we were able to help 1156 people.

Thank you friends for your generosity!

Lebanon Trust provides food parcels to refugee families in need

Last month we sent 10’000 dollars to Lebanon, split between FAID School for the Deaf and the Association Najdeh, active in Lebanon’s refugee camps. With these funds, our friends at Najdeh have distributed 265 food parcels to the neediest families in the refugee camps of Shatila and Burj Al-Barajneh in Beirut.

Thank you to all friends who supported this effort!

(tablets and smartphones: best viewed in landscape mode)

Dear friends and supporters,

despite the volatile situation in Lebanon, due to continued protests against mismanagement of public money and corruption, in November 2019 we went to Lebanon to visit the Institutions that we support thanks to your donations. They are: the Father Andeweg Institute for the Deaf (FAID), two kindergartens for refugee children, and the Home of Home, for orphans and street children.

This was our 12th consecutive visit to FAID, School for the Deaf in Beirut, which teaches about 80 children, Christian and Muslim alike, and refugees from Syria; many receive full boarding during the week. We restored and repainted the room for vocational teaching, where the children will be taught the art of hairdressing. We also did much maintenance to the school building, fixed and installed a door for the clinic and cleaned up the garden.

Towards the end of our stay, all the pupils gathered in the school’s courtyard to celebrate (and eat sweets).

Thank to your support, we were able to

• donate 8000 dollars towards speech therapy, so that the deaf children can learn to speak and lip-read, necessary skills to become independent and support themselves;
• donate 2000 dollars to buy heating oil for the classrooms (winters are cold in Lebanon!)
• buy equipment and materials for the work we did

We also visited the Home of Hope, an institution for orphaned and street children. They are now creating a vocational training programme, to make sure that the children can leave the institute equipped with professional and life skills, to become independent and build their own future.

We were able to donate 3000 dollars towards this programme, on behalf of our generous donors. We also brought sport equipment and clothes, thanks to O’Neills House of Sports in Dublin.

We went back to the refugee kindergartens in the camps of Shatila in Beirut and Burj el–Shemali in the ancient city of Tyre in the South of the country. Despite the poverty and squalor surrounding them, these kindergartens are oases of gaiety and serenity, painted in bright colours and spotlessly clean. The children, aged 3-5, play and learn how to read and write in Arabic and English. The staff are very resourceful and super-motivated. As always, they welcomed us with great hospitality and a veritable feast of Palestinian delicacies.

Thank to your generosity, we were able to donate 3000 dollars to each kindergarten towards teaching material for the children and maintenance of the buildings.

Finances

Income: donations to Lebanon Trust (Euro)

(Year close Nov 30, 2019; EUR/USD/CHF currency exchange rate: as applied by our bank in Ireland)

Expenditure: Donations to the supported institutions, expenses (Euro)

Our volunteers displayed a great imagination in devising ways to raise funds: Christmas swims, street collections, raffles, cake sales, quiz nights, office collections, etc.

Our special thanks to the friends who helped this year: