This year is different. Muslims and Christians are fasting together. For Muslims, the holy month of Ramadan started last Saturday. Oriental Christians started Lent last Monday. Western Christians are starting today. Furthermore, Catholic and Orthodox Easter will fall on the same day. What a wonderful moment of unity in a divided world! The liberation of Syria from more than 54 years of dictatorship and war is followed by this special time of grace, of repentance, of purification.

With our association, we have been waiting for over twelve years for this moment to come, not always patiently. In our first Peace Centre, we have brought thousands of people together, Syrians, Lebanese and foreigners as well as Muslims, Christians, Jews and persons of other conviction and belief. We have been working tirelessly to build a better future for the youth. In our learning centres, more than 3,500 children have received daily education. Many of our students are now in university. The youth we serve has established an inter-religious youth network.

Today, we are asking for your help again to take the next step together. We wish to continue our work in the poorest region of Lebanon, but we also wish to accompany our students home to Syria. We need at least 20,000 € to open new peace centres in Lebanon and Syria. Please read more below!

What a night! We are looking back on 8 December 2024, the Day of Liberation of Syria from more than 54 years of dictatorship under the Assad regime. In Akkar, the region of our Peace Centre in the far north of Lebanon, thousands poured into the streets and unfurled the Free Syrian banners that had been hidden for so many years. Our Syrian youth leaders shared their joy on social media and organised celebrations in our centres. One can hardly imagine the emotions after years of hardship, often without official status or legal protection, in the camps of Lebanon.

Our association will stand in solidarity with all those we serve -Lebanese and Syrians- regardless of their background or beliefs. Most of our Syrian staff members and volunteers have returned to Syria for their first visit. We have also conducted a survey among the families of our students to learn more about their plans and intentions. It appears that 23% of them have already resettled permanently. Many more wish to return within the coming year, but their homes are still destroyed.

Please read more below to learn about the detailed results of our survey. The results are very relevant for the future orientation of our work.

For over a decade, Relief & Reconciliation (R&R) has been working at the intersection of peacebuilding and humanitarian aid, offering hope to Syrian refugees and vulnerable Lebanese communities in the Akkar Governorate of Lebanon. Our mission remains steadfast: to provide continuous education as a means of fostering social cohesion and empowering the next generation.

The school year 2024/25 has started in harsher conditions than ever. The bombing of Lebanon by Israel, following the attacks of Hamas and Hezbollah on 7 October 2023, has not spared our region, even though no attacks have been launched from here. Our Peace Centre and most public schools were sheltering internally displaced persons from the South of Lebanon. Several shelters were bombed.

As a consequence, the school year 2024/25 started with huge delays: regular morning shifts in public schools were launched in November and the supplementary afternoon shifts for Syrian refugee children only in January. Despite all these challenges, classes in the 3 permanent educational centres of R&R were running from day one of the school year. We didn't wait for the afternoon shifts to start.

Our continuous educational work, uninterrupted for more than 11 years, is only funded by your donations. Please read more below about our plans and needs!

Our team in the northern border region of Lebanon is raising red flags with regard to the protection of minors during this time of war. We have been witnessing a sharp increase in different forms of abuse, both in the private and public space. Our biggest reason of concern: the total neglect for the fate of Syrian refugee children who seem too often to be considered as "dispensable" during the current hostilities. Lebanon's public authorities are often involved in the abuse.

The most shocking cases were two of our former students in the Akkar Governorate, one twelve years of age, the other fourteen, who were wrongfully accused of crimes by their Lebanese neighbours. Both were Syrians with legally valid residence permits. Both of them were held in jail for several months in terrible conditions, without regular food or visits. Both were cleared by the judges from any wrong-doing. Still, they were only allowed to leave jail having paid a bail. Please click below for finding our press release and further details about these cases!

Not only Syrian refugee children are victim of abuse and neglect during these times of war and displacement. Also Lebanese have less and less access to education and are more and more pushed into child labour or child marriage. In the sections below, we are documenting some alarming cases. Ahead of 20 November, the World Children's Day, we are trying to build a coalition of human rights organisations and like-minded NGOs for raising awareness and advocating better protection.

War has returned to Lebanon. We are living today with the constant sound of drones and planes in the sky that can strike at any moment. From the first day of the war, we have opened the doors of our Peace Centre and our other educational centres to those who had to flee the fighting in the South. Today, we need your help to provide emergency aid and continue the care for the children we serve.

Fortunately, the region of our Peace Centre has remained relatively calm. The Akkar Governorate in the utmost north of Lebanon does not have a significant Hezbollah presence and is not a main target. This does not mean, however, that we are entirely spared. Particular houses and cars have also been bombed, and the transportation from and to Beirut is not without risk. But still, Akkar has become a sanctuary for families from the South of Lebanon and Bekaa whose houses have been destroyed. In Akkar alone, more than 70,000 internally displaced persons have arrived, adding a huge burden to the 220,000 original Lebanese inhabitants, who have already welcomed more than 150,000 Syrian and Palestinian refugees.

We need at least 9,100 € to provide emergency aid to the families who had to flee. The needs are crushing, and we can easily extend our services beyond this amount. But 9,100 € will allow us to provide for emergency shelter and daily care for displaced children in our learning centres and in public schools of our area. Please read more below for further details about how we are going to use these emergency funds and please share this call with your families and friends! 

During the school year 2023/24, R&R extended its educational services to more than 500 children in Akkar, benefiting both Lebanese and Syrian students across the villages of Bkarzla, Kousha, Michmich, and Rahbe. As always, we began by working closely with the local community, listening to their needs and challenges, and tailored our programs to ensure that we address the diverse educational gaps that exist. By doing so, we were able to provide systemic support that responded specifically to the priorities of the families we served.

One of the significant challenges faced this year was the suspension of transportation aid by the UN, which left many unable to afford the daily cost of getting their children to school. R&R thus stepped in by offering bus services to and from public schools for those participating in specific educational activities. This critical intervention ensured that no child misses out on learning due to financial barriers.

The Holy Month of Ramadan is approaching and millions of Muslims around the world will be fasting during daylight before the welcome of family, friends and strangers to break the fast together at sunset. It is a special time of purification and hospitality, reducing consumption and giving the zakat of charity to the poor. This year, however, the breaking of the fast has a bitter aftertaste. How can we be joyful and eat when children are starving in Gaza, when tens of thousands have been killed?

We call upon all people of good will to join us this year in a Ramadan of Solidarity. Muslims, Christians, Jews and all people of good will shall be united in humanity and solidarity with all those who suffer. We are calling for a universal ceasefire during this holy month, in Gaza, Syria, Lebanon, Ukraine... and wherever the brutal force of war and oppression is killing other men, women and children. Our fast is a sign of our firm stance against all forms of violence and of our solidarity with the Muslim Ummah.

We are also calling for your generosity. The people we have served in the Idlib Governorate of Syria need our help more than ever. Living under the rule of Islamist militias, they have been depending very much on private Islamic charities from the Gulf area and from around the world. These private donations are today given to Gaza, for a good reason. But the people in Idlib, amongst them more than 3.5 million internally displaced by the bombs of the Assad regime, are left alone with the ruins of 13 years of war and oppression and the terrible earthquake that followed.

Twelve years have passed since the beginning of the Syrian Revolution and the brutal suppression that followed. For the last ten years, we have done our utmost to cope with the consequences of the war Assad has been waging against his own people. At least 600,000 have been killed, about 200,000 of them civilians. More than 13 million had to flee their home. That is more than half of the country!

Children are the first victims of war and displacement, the most vulnerable. Over the last 10 years, we have been following our approach to unite different, and sometimes opposed, communities around a common cause: the future of the youth. We have provided daily education to more than 3,300 children, facilitating the enrollment of Syrian refugee children into Lebanese schools and preventing dropout for both Syrians and vulnerable Lebanese youth.

Today, like in the past, we need your help to keep going. Please read more below and share this post with your families and friends!

On 13 October 2022, youth leaders from 5 different locations came together with religious leaders of all major communities in Akkar to discuss and adopt a Children's Rights Charter they have drafted throughout the year. The endorsement by the main leaders of the Sunni Islamic Umma, the Greek-Orthodox Church, the Maronite Church and the Alawite Muslim community of Akkar meant a lot to the youth. It was a strong message of unity and solidarity in times of war and displacement.

Today, we are glad to present you the illustrated version of the charter that has been adopted by the unanimity of all 80 youth leaders. In several meetings and thanks to the help of an elected drafting committee amongst their members, the youth leaders agreed on a strong text with their demands for the future. Our Egyptian volunteer Menna illustrated the 8 chapters of the book with true stories that were collected together with the youth leaders. And in the introduction of each chapter, Friedrich, our secretary general, presents the results of a representative survey conducted by the youth leaders amongst more than 800 children of Akkar.

We would like to thank all youth leaders, both Lebanese and Syrians from all Muslim and Christian communities of the region, for their hard work. We also thank Sheikh Zayd Zakariya, the elected Mufti of Akkar, Saidna Basilius Mansour, Greek-Orthodox Archbishop of Akkar, Saidna Youssef Soueif, Maronite Archbishop of Tripoli, as well as Sheikh Hassan Hamed and Ustaz Ahmad Haddam, the elected representatives of the Alawite community in Akkar, for their support and their endorsement. Last but not least, we would like to thank GIZ and the German Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development to have funded this project.

If you follow the link below, you can download the book in low resolution. Please contact us if you wish to receive or reproduce it in printed form!

A week after the summer breeze settled in the mountains of Michmich, echoes of the “Fabulous Wizard Tournament” still linger. Guided by international volunteers, the camp transformed into a vibrant tapestry of laughter, riddles, and interreligious friendships. Youth leaders braved the mountain nights in Bedouin tents, while younger adventurers joined for sun-drenched days of discovery. The magic of Akkar’s highlands cast a spell that none of them will soon forget.

This is the story of Hiyam. She was the very first of all the children we have served to meet with Friedrich and the volunteers at the R&R Peace Centre. Back then, in May 2013, she was about to lose her arm because of a shrapnel from one of the bombs of the Syrian regime against the people of Qusayr, a small Syrian town that had dared to defy the reign of terror by Assad and his allies.

Today, Hiyam has achieved her high school graduation and is studying at Lebanese University, the only public university of the country. She wants to become a medical doctor to save the life of refugees and of any other person in need. She also works as an outreach volunteer with R&R for raising health awareness in the refugee camps and other rural areas of the Akkar region, in the utmost north of Lebanon.

Today, we are asking for your help again, because education cannot wait. We have more than 700 other students who depend on your generosity to pass their school year, midst in disaster and despair that surrounds us. Please click on the "Read More" link to learn about how you can make a difference in their lives!

We need your urgent support to provide life-saving emergency aid to the families of our students in the city of Salqin, 5 km next to the Turkish-Syrian border, which has largely been destroyed in the 7.8 earthquake of last Monday, 6 February.

PLEASE DONATE TODAY WITH THE SPECIAL OBJECT "EARTHQUAKE"

UPDATES PUBLISHED BELOW (click "Read more")

We need at least $25,000 for providing emergency shelters and warm meals for the families of our students who lost their home. There are no tents available in the area around Salqin, but our volunteers are building provisional brick houses and deliver warm meals. One brick house per family costs around $400. The ingredients for one warm meal per family cost between $5 and $8. Our volunteers also try to find as quickly as possible blankets, clothes and medical drugs. Whatever money arrives on our accounts will be transferred immediately to Salqin.

We give the guarantee that all funds received via our accounts that have the special mention "Earthquake" will go 100% to the families in Salqin. The emergency aid will be delivered through the volunteers of our Syrian branch on the ground. All overhead and transaction costs will be covered through our general budget. (Our overhead costs have been less than 1% since the very beginning of our work. The transaction costs are limited to a maximum of 2% thanks to the informal transfer systems used by our volunteers on the ground. We guarantee that none of these fees goes to terrorist organisations or war criminals that are sanctioned by the US or the EU.)

For more than nine years, we have provided daily education for Syrian refugees and Lebanese youth of all communities in the Akkar Governorate of Lebanon, the poorest region of the country with the highest percentage of refugees. We could enroll more than 3,000 refugee children into school. In the last school year, more than 700 students received daily education in one of our five learning centres.

The situation today is more dramatic than ever. Lebanon has lived through a total economic breakdown with more than 1,500% inflation over three years. Public schools are nowadays almost permanently on strike because the state cannot pay any more teachers. Our learning centres have de facto become the only chance for the children we serve to receive a comprehensive education.

In the framework of the project “Interreligious Youth Network for Peace and Children Rights in Akkar”, we are looking for an experimented illustrator/graphic designer to produce an illustrated version of the Children Rights Charter, written together with our youth leaders from all communities of Akkar. The result can be presented in form of a comic book or an illustrated collection of testimonies that we are going to print, both in Arabic and in English language. Both the drafting process and the final book will be important milestones after nine years of work in the north of Lebanon.

Please find below the official call for applications that includes the exact terms of reference, required qualifications and conditions:

Deadline: Monday, 20 June 2022, 11:55pm Beirut time (UTC+2:00)
Applications or inquiries: [email protected]

For the ninth time, religious leaders of the Akkar Governorate, the region of our first Peace Centre in the north of Lebanon, came together with Syrian refugees and our Lebanese friends for the annual Peace Iftar. Muslims and Christians of different sects and convictions broke the fast together in this Holy Month of Ramadan. More than 200 friends from different beliefs and convictions, most of them Syrian refugees from the camps, came together for this main event of the year, renewing their commitment to work together for peace and justice, in solidarity with the most deprived.

Lebanon has been hit by a triple crisis. The Covid-19 pandemic came only on top of  political turmoil at home and in neighbouring Syria and a dramatic economic meltdown with more than 400% inflation per year. The needs are enormous and we need your help for keeping our class rooms open, both virtually and in real life. We started collecting used tablets and laptop computers to facilitate distant learning in this academic year. Lebanese schools have finally adapted to the Covid-19 pandemic with online classes, but almost none of the Syrian refugee children has access to electronic devices and affordable internet.

The biggest part of our budget is dedicated to education. In the school-year 2019-20, we opened a third informal camp school in vicinity of Kousha and we could maintain daily educational classes for more than 250 children in four different locations of the Akkar Governorate. In 2019, we spent more than €100,000 for our Educational Programme, also thanks to a grant we received from SlovakAid. In this year, like in the past, we are relying exclusively on private small donations to bring the children we serve through the Covid Winter. It is the start of our 8th school year and there has not been one school day without classes at our Peace Centre.

The pandemic of the new corona virus has severe effects on the refugee camps in the north of Lebanon. Though none of the families we serve has been infected, the total lockdown of the country is a heavy burden. Most Syrian refugees are earning a living as daily labourer, but even the black market is shut down nowadays. And the cash assistance from the UN is only $27 per month for about half of all refugee families - not enough to still the hunger if you also have to pay rent.

We have been urged by the families we serve to provide basic assistance to survive the crisis. Such form of aid is not our usual approach, as we favour to support the self-reliance of communities. But in these special times, it is literally about the daily bread. We started distributing bread baskets in the refugee camps of Akkar and we wish to extend the emergency response to poor Lebanese. $1 per day can make the difference to nourish a family. We call upon your generosity to help.

For more than two months, the Lebanese people are in the streets. The whole country is blocked and more than a quarter of the entire population joined the protests against the ruling class of politicians. We have seen many protests in Beirut over the last years, but never it spread to all regions of the country. All banks, schools and universities have been closed for several weeks and most highways are blocked. The demonstrations have remained peaceful over the first weeks but some of the ruling parties have recently tried to stir up sectarian hatred.

The whole approach of Relief & Reconciliation is put to a test in this tense situation. We have united all communities in Akkar, the poorest region of Lebanon, around our cause: the future of the youth. We have managed to enrol more than 1,200 Syrian refugees into public schools. And also in this seventh school year since we started operations, we managed to keep our classes running. So far, more than 150 students are attending our daily homework help sessions and basic literacy and numeracy classes. We finished the last school year 2018/19 with more than 300 students, also thanks to a grant of SlovakAid. We want to get there again this year.

The war in Syria is far from being over. For the last 4 months, the Idlib Governorate in the North-West of Syria has been the target of daily bombings by the Syrian regime and its Russian ally. With all borders closed around the country, Idlib was the last safe zone for many Syrians who were fleeing the persecution of the regime. More than 3 million IDPs (internally displaced persons) are stranded here. Our Syrian branch, the Levantine Relief Network, has been working in Idlib for more than four years.

Today, an urgent call for help reached us from Barkush, next to the Turkish border. 40,000 displaced persons have arrived over the last weeks, mainly from Khan Shaykhun. With the help of some local friends, they could built provisional tents and shelters. But there is no help to nourish the children and maintain basic hygiene. We are calling upon your generosity to deliver emergency kits and food baskets to the families stranded in Barkush. Please click on the "Donate" button to make a contribution and please note "Idlib" in the subject line! You will find more details below if you click on the "Read more" link.

Education is a marathon, not a sprint. Since the establishment of our first Peace Centre in the North of Lebanon in 2013, we have been providing daily education to more than 1,200 Syrian and Lebanese children. We follow the principle of continuity of care. None of the children that we have served has been left behind. In 2015, we managed to enrol more than 450 Syrian students of our informal camp schools into public Lebanese schools. Since then, we continue to provide daily homework help to Syrians and Lebanese to support their success in school.

In this school year 2018/19, we could expand our work thanks to a project grant by SlovakAid, in partnership with People in Need Slovakia. Besides the Peace Centre in Bkarzla, the Tell Aabbas camp and the outreach centre in Michmich, we could open a fourth location in the village of Rahbe. About 300 students are attending 16 daily classes in these locations. And despite the winter cold in the Akkar mountains, the hearts of our teachers and international volunteers are burning to make the school integration of all these children a success.

The highlight of this year's Akkar Summer School of Spiritual Solidarity was a great summer camp organised with local volunteers from different communities. We brought together Syrian and Lebanese children from Muslim and Christian villages to learn, play and sing together on top of the Akkar mountains.

Last week, we finished the fifth year of school support in the North of Lebanon, next to Syrian border. As in previous years, we offered daily homework help sessions at our Peace Centre in Bkarzla and at the informal camp school in Tell Aabbas throughout the school year. Our Lebanese and Syrian teachers joined forces with our international volunteers to continue the care for the children we serve and not to leave anybody behind. We hope that all our students successfully passed the exams. Besides homework help, we also offered English classes in Bkarzla, Tell Aabbas and two other locations. And with the help of the Tavola Valdese from Italy, we could provide vocational training classes in the field of electricity, plumbing and sowing.

Midst in the school year, in the end of January, we were shocked by the arson attack on the main class room of the Tell Aabbas camp school. Unknown assailants had put the wooden structure on fire. We are fortunate that homework classes could continue in the workshop for our vocational training and that a Spanish NGO started now the reconstruction of the class room. But the incident shows in how vulnerable conditions Syrian refugees in Lebanon are living. Most of those we serve are paralysed by constant fear of arbitrary arrests, as they don't have any legal residence. Criminal acts like this arson attack are hardly pursued by the authorities and many are exploited on the informal labour market without any guarantee to get paid.

The school year is over, but life goes on. Our vocational training classes are going to continue throughout the summer and our international volunteers are offering catch-up classes and summer activities for preparing the return to school. We need your help to continue our struggle for the future of the Syrian youth. Please support us with a small donation! You can find out how in the Donate Now! section.

From 28 August till 22 September 2017, participants from around the world came to the R&R Peace Centre for our first "Akkar Summer School of Spiritual Solidarity". International participants from various academic backgrounds joined forces with local volunteers from Syria and Lebanon to reflect upon this guiding principle of our work. Academic courses on political, religious, legal and humanitarian aspects of the Syrian refugee crisis were combined with outreach activities and the implementation of small solidarity projects in the different communities we serve.

The news from Syria is not getting better. 2016 was a terrible year for the Syrian people and also for our young organisation. Aleppo has been destroyed and thousands more have been killed or displaced. We have seen friends losing their loved ones under the bombs of the Syrian regime and its allies. We have seen people losing hope. We have seen people profiting from the suffering of others for personal gains.

But with your help, we could keep a little flame of hope alive. We are the only organisation combining peacebuilding with humanitarian aid in response to the Syrian crisis. At our Peace Centre in the North of Lebanon, we have brought together people of all faiths and backgrounds around a common cause: the future of the youth.