This holiday season, as you spend time with friends and family and shop for gifts for your loved ones, please take a minute to watch our Christmas message and to think of us and of those we serve. 

Please watch and share this powerful film produced by the refugee youth at R&R Syria's youth press club in Akkar (Lebanon) with the help of students from the audio-visual department of Université Saint-Joseph in Beirut. "Take off the mask of prejudice and see the human face of the Syrian youth!" This is the message the youth in the refugee camps at the Syrian border want to convey to the world. The youngsters decided themselves what labels they see imposed on them. Many thanks to them and to the Lebanese students who came during two long weekends to Akkar for producing the footage and putting together this fantastic film!

The Holy Month of Ramadan is over and the summer is here. In the heat of Northern Lebanon, our team of international and local summer volunteers has launched the third edition of our intensive catch-up classes for Syrian refugee children and Lebanese host communities during school vacations. During two months, our volunteers will be delivering daily intensive classes to more than 200 students in the surroundings of our first Peace Centre in the Akkar region (Lebanon):

This year will also be the start of the official Accelerated Learning Programme of Lebanese public schools, funded by UNICEF. The goal is to finally enroll Syrian refugee students into public Lebanese schools. The international community has granted more than $600 million for this purpose to the Lebanese government- but the results after one year of implementation are very meager. Only 20,000 of the estimated 500,000 Syrian school-aged children without education have been enrolled over the past school year. Now things shall get better.

During the 9 days leading to the second anniversary of Father Paolo Dall Oglio's disappearance in Syria, on 29 July 2013, our international volunteers gathered every night on the rooftop of the R&R Peace Centre in Bkarzla for a moment of silence and meditation. Muslims, Christians and persons of other beliefs were united in their prayers and thoughts for Paolo and all other victims of dictatorship, war and hatred. In a form of novena, we were reading and discussing words from Paolo as well as other texts out of the Jewish, Christian or Muslim tradition.

Every year since its establishment, R&R Syria has been holding a big Peace Iftar in the holy month of Ramadan. For millions of Muslims throughout the world, Ramadan is a most special time. It is not only a month of fasting, meditation and nearness to God, but also a month of hospitality, solidarity and tolerance. R&R Syria is inviting every year all communities present in Akkar, the region of our first Peace Centre, to unite for one special night over Iftar tables to break the fast together. Sunnis, Alawites and Christians, both Syrians and Lebanese, followed our invitation and shared a moment of hospitality and shared humanity.

An intensive year has come to an end. On 10 June 2015, we celebrated the end of the second school year in the informal camp school for Syrian refugees we helped to establish two years ago. This year has seen many changes: thanks to the support of the Malaak Initiative, here in Lebanon, we could help to expand the informal school from three to fourteen class-rooms. More than 400 children from 18 informal camps in the surrounding areas were registered. We had tried again to enroll them into public Lebanese schools but there was no space available. For this reason, our local and international teaching volunteers provided daily education according to the Lebanese curriculum to the kids throughout this school year.

During the Easter holiday, on Tuesday 7 April, several dozen Lebanese and Syrians, Christians and Muslims united, were marching together for peace and justice in Syria. In a time where hatred and violence are dominating the international news, they wanted to set a symbol for solidarity between different religions and convictions.

Buses were leaving in the early morning from Beirut and from Akkar to meet in the breathtaking nature of Qadisha Valley, the Holy Valley of the Maronites where more than a dozen of old monasteries, carved in the steep rocks, are witnessing the long and rich history of faith since the Maronites themselves arrived as refugees, several hundred years ago, fleeing persecution to the safe mountain retreat.

On Wednesday, 11 March, the German ambassador to Lebanon visited our informal camp school in Akkar and participated afterwards in a lunch with members of our regional Steering Committee in Bkarzla, the village of our first Peace Centre.

It was the first visit of ambassador Christian Clages to Akkar, at the Northern border of Lebanon. This region receives very few official visits because of security and difficult access from Beirut. It is the poorest region of Lebanon that is welcoming today the highest number of Syrian refugees per head: about 200,000 Lebanese are living side by side with 150,000 refugees. People here feel neglected and abandoned by the central government and the international community.

If you live in New York or if you have friends there, please spread the word about the exhibition of artworks from the children of our Syrian refugee camp school in the North of Lebanon that is going to open on 20 March 2014 at 6 PM at Rogue Space Chelsea, midst in Manhattan. We reported already about the amazing work Kevin from New York and Jerar from Syria did for introducing our kids to new art techniques. Now you can admire the results and buy one of their art works. The benefits of this auction will go 100% back to the camp school. In the comping days, you will also be able to purchase one of the art works online.

Please follow this link for learning more about the exhibition and about the work of Rogue Foundation that sponsored it: http://www.chelseagalleryspace.com/

You can also read a press article about the project and the exhibition following this link: http://www.eyesin.com/art/2014/syria-childrens-footprints-capture-horror/

Besides our daily school classes for Syrian refugee and Lebanese host communities, we started to develop vocational training modules for giving also an economic perspective to those who need to earn their living. Refugees do not want to rely on charity alone, they want to take back control of their lives and work.

Since December 2013, a group of women from the refugee camp of Minyara, close to our Peace Centre, are gathering five times a week to attend sewing and jewelry workshops taught by experienced teachers we hired. The impact is already visible: the sewing group made first deliveries of school uniforms and the women of the jewelry class opened a small shop for accessories.

You can also purchase these items through our national chapters in Europe, empowering hence the women and supporting refugees to help themselves. Please do not hesitate to contact us if you are interested in a delivery.

One year ago, on 2 January 2013, we established our new NGO “Relief & Reconciliation for Syria”. It has been a year of struggle, a year of grief and probation. But thanks to your support, it has also been a year of grace. Today, it is time to say thank you and to look ahead.

The situation in Syria is getting worse every day. According to the UN, more than two-thirds of Syria’s population has been displaced. Lebanon alone is hosting between 1 and 2 million refugees- about a third of its own population. The stories we have heard and seen in our work in the field remind me of the worst memories of our history in Germany and Europe. Our fears to see the Syrian Revolution being pushed into sectarian war are turning into reality. The Syrian regime and other actors have chosen this path in cold blood to maintain their grasp on power. But there is hope. We are amazed by the deep sense of humanity we encounter in every conversation with Syrian refugees.

In July 2013, we started our operations in the North of Lebanon with the opening of our first Peace Centre for the youth in need. We united all major communities of the region around this common cause. At the big Peace Iftar we organised in Ramadan, Christians and Muslims of the region were united in their solidarity with Syrian refugees. Sunnis and Alawites, who are on the opposite sides of the conflict, were praying together for the first time here. Until the end of the year, 20 international volunteers stayed at our Peace Centre and joined our local staff in the teaching of languages and the development of the arts. More than 300 young refugees are receiving regular education now. We are also providing them with psychosocial support and material aid where needed.

Besides our peacebuilding and our educational work, providing regular classes to more than 300 Syrians and Lebanese, we have started to complement school with some recreational activities for those of them living in harsh conditions in the informal camps at the Lebanese/Syrian border. In the end of November, just before the start of snow and rain, Kevin from New York joined us to offer a special art workshop to refugee kids, joined by an exiled Syrian artist. For more than a week, our school children were invited to draw and paint their dreams for the future. We also started to resume the cross-country games of this summer, giving the youth the chance to forget for a few hours the daily hardship of the camps.

In the end of October 2012, we met for the first time in Brussels for building our new NGO in response to the Syrian crisis. On 2 January 2013, we met the Belgian notary for the official foundation. One year later, the first Peace Centre is up and running. More than 300 refugee children are receiving regular education through our staff. Time to meet again!

R&R Syria has by now more than 120 members in 16 national chapters. Delegates came from across Europe and the Middle East on their own costs to meet in Brussels during the weekend of 7/8 December 2013 for an Extraordinary General Assembly. The first year of exercise has not been concluded yet, but we needed to discuss our future development. We are planning to open a second Peace Centre in Lebanon and perhaps a third in Turkey in 2014. Also, we were looking for ways to channel more aid inside Syria where it is very much needed.

With the help of more than 1,000 individual donors, we have achieved our initial fundraising objective for the establishment of a first Peace Centre at the Lebanese border to Syria. Thank you all for your trust and generosity! Your support also allowed us to realise our summer volunteer programme and to fill our Peace Centre with life. Profiting from the experience of the intensive foreign classes given over summer by our international volunteers, we have decided to extend our educational activities beyond our own Peace Centre and we are asking for your help for doing so. As from now, you can decide yourself where your money goes. Besides our Educational Programme Line, you can also fund our humanitarian aid activities.

The past two months have seen 18 international volunteers arrive at our first Peace Centre in Bkarzla, Lebanon and fill it with life. They came to bring relief and reconciliation to the hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees stranded in the North of Lebanon alone. They came from the most diverse origins all over the world: from Mexico to India, but also Canada, Belgium, France, Germany, Denmark, Switzerland, the UK and the US… and of course from Lebanon. You can read at our special volunteers blog more about their personal experience.

Thanks to their outstanding commitment and passion, four weeks of intensive language classes took place, assisting 60 Syrian and Lebanese children, 47 of whom successfully completed their class. A day-care was established to give children under the age of 10 a chance to play, sing dance and draw in a safe and peaceful environment, together with other children from different communities. We held weekly cross-country games, where up to 80 children participated each week in swimming in the river, hiking in the mountains and various games. Our volunteers also participated in our outreach activities, meeting local refugees in the various camps that surround our Peace Centre and hearing their stories, building thus positive relationships with them that will set the foundation for our future work in the area.

Report on our first Peace Iftar uniting Sunnis, Alawis and Christians in solidarity with Syrian refugees in the Akkar (Lebanon), written by R&R member Isabella Eisenberg.

On Monday, 29 July 2013 (20 Ramadan 1434), an unlikely group of fellow diners gathered in front of a beautiful mountain top restaurant in the village of Miniara, in the Akkar district of North Lebanon, less than 15 minutes by car from the Syrian border. R&R Syria united representatives from all religious communities and groups present in Akkar for a Peace Iftar in favour of Syrian refugees from Qusayr, Homs and other parts of the country. Amongst those attending were representatives of Sunni and Alawi groups who are fighting each other a few kilometers further South (in Tripoli) and a few kilometers further North (in Syria). A potentially explosive mixture, and yet – if managed well – a mixture with huge potential.

We wish all our Muslim members and friends a joyful and holy month of Ramadan. We have started our special Ramadan activities with Syrian refugees in Lebanon but also in our national chapters in Europe. Muslims or not: many of us have started fasting in spiritual solidarity. We all hope that Ramadan 2013 will become a month of repentance and reconciliation.

We started into the holy month with a March into Ramadan with Syrian refugee kids in Halba (Lebanon), close to our first Peace Centre. Together with a local partner organisation, we had a cheerful walk, ending in the distribution of several hundreds of Iftar packs to poor families in need. In the coming weeks, we are organising Peace Iftars with Syrian refugees and with different communities in Lebanon: Sunni, Shiite, Catholic, Orthodox, Alawite and Druze. We wish to contribute a little bit to easing the tensions between Sunnis and Shiites that are currently devoring Syria, Lebanon and many other countries of the Middle East.

The preparations for the opening of our first Peace Centre for young people from different communities affected by the Syrian crisis have reached their final stage. We signed the rental agreement for a great house in the North of Lebanon, hardly 10 km away from the Syrian border. It will open on 15 July and shall be fully operational by the beginning of September.

In preparation of our small opening and we have started the distribution of first-aid items to newly arriving refugees who had to flee the hell of Qusayr. After a thorough evaluation of the needs and of the crisis response in the field, we decided to distribute emergency-aid items that are not included into the standard operational procedures of the UNHCR to new arriving refugees.