Ramadan & Lent of Unity
Help us plant seeds of peace in Lebanon and Syria
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!
The future Peace Centre in Qantara, Akkar
After more than twelve years, our first Peace Centre is going to move to Qantara, a beautiful village in Akkar, Lebanon, just across the river from our first location. We just signed the contract for 10 years of rent at a stable price of only $150/month. However, the beautiful house we found needs to be renovated, as you can see on the picture above. We estimate that the renovation will cost us about $5,000 to make the place inhabitable for our students and international volunteers.
“Qantara” means “arch” in Arabic. And the name of the village couldn’t be better! It is the only village of the whole region where all communities live together in the same space: Sunni and Alawite Muslims as well as Maronite and Orthodox Christians. The village has never had any trouble during the years of Lebanese Civil War and during the brutal oppression of the Syrian Revolution. There is a tacit agreement that the position of the mayor will always alternate between Christians and Muslims. All local communities have welcomed us with open arms.
We wish to continue our work in Bkarzla and all locations of Akkar where we have established learning centres and youth clubs. With the new Peace Centre in Qantara, we are reducing our rental costs tremendously, which will allow us both to maintain our classes in Lebanon and expand our work in Syria.
Moving into Syria, to Homs and Damascus
Since the very beginning of our work, we have delivered life-saving humanitarian aid inside Syria. We have been supporting informal groups in rebel-controlled areas to bring food, shelter and education to the youth. However, we had not been able to open a Peace Centre inside Syria, like we did in Lebanon: an open house where international volunteers live the values of spiritual solidarity and help to build bridges of understanding between different communities. Before the victory of the Syrian Revolution, foreigners were either forced to collaborate with the Assad regime or to live under constant risk of shelling, kidnapping or other harm.
But things are changing quickly. The liberation of Syria opens new avenues of justice, peace and prosperity. Our international staff members have visited Syria over the last weeks, together with our Syrian friends. We were welcomed by families of our former students who have already resettled. As you could read in our previous post, most of our students come from the town of Qusayr in the Homs Governorate of Syria, next to the Lebanese border. We have also supported local groups from Kafranbel in the Idlib Governorate, as well as from Yabrud and Eastern Ghouta in the Rif Damascus Governorate. The needs are tremendous, but the hope is even bigger. We witnessed a spirit of solidarity, shaping the future together.
All the families we met wish us to open new peace centres next to their home. We started to identity potential locations and we reached out to religious leaders of these areas to form regional steering committees, in line with our tested methodology. We wish to support different communities to come together and work together for the sake of a better future for the Syrian youth.
Thank you for walking this extra mile with us!
We cannot say often enough how grateful we are for all the support our donors and volunteers have given to us. We are relying mainly on private small donations for staying independent from government interests and for ensuring the sustainability of our work. Especially in the fields of peacebuilding and education, short-term projects do often more harm than good. We prefer a long-term approach, growing up with the children we serve. We could not have done it without you!
At this decisive moment of our journey, we humbly ask you to renew your help. We still have not covered all financial needs for the current school year, but we also wish to move into Syria. This is a flexible call for help. €20,000 will allow us to equip the new Peace Centre in Akkar and start a second Peace Centre in the Homs Governorate of Syria. Every €10,000 more will allow us to open centres in one more region.
Please spread the word and consider making a donation today, as sign of solidarity and unity between Jews, Christians, Muslims and all persons of good will. In these challenging times, we need these seeds of hope and peace more than ever! We’d like to thank you from the bottom of our hearts.