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Our educational activities

This text is from our first year, 2013.

Following the establishment of the first Peace Centre in the North of Lebanon and the set-up of our activities thanks to our Summer Volunteers, we started our regular educational activities with the beginning of the new school year, in October 2013. Our main objective is to bring young Syrian refugees back to school. Many of them have been without regular education for more than two years.

But the challenges in Lebanon are huge. There is simply not enough room in public schools! According to the UN, there are now more school-age refugee children in the country than Lebanese. Also, most Lebanese schools are in French, a language that was hardly part of the Syrian curriculum. The Lebanese ministry and the UN promised nevertheless that all refugee children can be enrolled. We continued our daily intensive French classes for four weeks before it became clear that this promise will not be fulfilled. That was the moment for us to further diversify our offer: we continue our daily French class for the older kids (12 to 16) as we hope they at least might enroll for obtaining official certification. We also started an informal camp school for the younger kids (6 to 11) to give them a comprehensive primary education. Last but not least, we organise homework help classes, mainly in French, to keep those kids in school who could enroll. Also Lebanese are participating in these homework help classes as we want everybody in need to benefit.

By the end of 2013, more than 300 children and adolescents are receiving regular education through our local and international staff. Half of them daily and the other half twice a week as homework help. We are teaching in the two classrooms of our Peace Centre and by now in 3 outreach centres in its surroundings. Two more outreach centres are supposed to start working in the beginning of 2014. But much more is needed! Thanks for your support.

Work of our Summer Volunteers

This text is from our first year, 2013.

Over this summer, 18 volunteers came from around the world to fill our first Peace Center with life. Young men and women from the most diverse origins, from Mexico to India, from Switzerland to Lebanon, came to Bkarzla in North Lebanon, only 12 km south of the Syrian border, to help Syrian refugees and Lebanese in need. On the work load: 4 weeks of intensive language classes for making children fit for the Lebanese school system.

More than 60 children attended the classes, and 47 completed them successfully. Many of the children have not been to school for two years or more. For kids below 10, we offered day-care: games, singing, dancing, and drawings. More than 80 kids participated in our weekly cross country games in the close-by river and the beautiful Lebanese mountains. Our volunteers have met many more refugees in the camps. Some volunteers also brought donations that were used for equipping a medical dispensary in the framework of our Humanitarian Aid Programme Line. Many thanks to our volunteers Constance Proux, Alyette Tritsch and Evangéline de Bourgoing for the beautiful pictures!

A volunteer and cheering teenagers hold up notebooks and drawings in front of a wallA volunteer and teenage girls in headscarves sit around a red table with worksheetsA laughing girl in a purple headscarf sits at a table with a drawing of a pink flowerGirls in headscarves lean over a large sheet of paper, drawing with coloured pencilsA girl and a boy in a red shirt draw at a table in a room hung with children’s drawingsSmall girls draw with coloured pencils on a large sheet of paperA smiling girl holds up a large poster covered in drawingsTwo girls and a kneeling boy pose next to a poster of their drawings on the wallFour girls in headscarves present a poster of drawings with flags and a doveA pencil drawing of a tank next to a coloured pink flower on a sheet of paperA boy draws on a whiteboard next to a poster of faces for happy, sad and tired in FrenchSeen from above, children draw with pencils on a sheet of paper on a red tableTwo children play a card game at a tableVolunteers and children pose for a group photo outside the centreFour small girls stand in a row against a bare wallA hand-drawn chart of faces for feelings such as cold, hot, scared, sad, angry and happyA child’s exercise book page with English sentences such as “I am happy” and “I am sad” beside a column of drawn facesA small boy in a red T-shirt sits on a motorbike eating breadA volunteer with a camera and children holding drawings pose for a group photo outside a buildingBoys jump for a ball with a volunteer in a courtyardSmiling girls crowd together outdoors, one of them waving at the cameraA smiling girl makes glasses around her eyes with her fingersA laughing boy stands under a waterfall while another boy watchesA soaked girl laughs in front of a waterfallA volunteer stands with three children in the spray of a riverA grinning boy sits in a shallow river holding a piece of pipeLaughing girls splash in the water at the foot of a waterfallGrinning boys crowd the open window of a red carTwo boys, one of them smiling, sit by the open window inside a carChildren look through a glass wall into an indoor swimming poolA group of children stands at the far end of a large, dim indoor swimming poolA boy in a blue T-shirt reading “Top One” looks through the glass at an indoor poolTwo girls slide into an indoor swimming pool, splashingClose-up of a boy in a white vest looking into the cameraCardboard boxes and plastic bags of medical supplies stacked in a corner next to a shelfAn open cardboard box full of medicine packsA cardboard box packed with boxes of paracetamol and diclofenac tabletsMen unload cardboard boxes from the boot of a carA volunteer and a man lift boxes from the boot of a car outside a building with blue doorsA man checks a list against a medicine pack while two men in a dispensary room look onTwo men sort packs of medicine on a hospital bedA volunteer shakes hands with a man in a dispensary room stacked with boxes of medicine

Start of Ramadan activities

This text is from our first year, 2013.

On 9/10 July, the holy month of Ramadan started in Lebanon. Following the call of Father Paolo Dall’Oglio and others, we are joining the fasting in spiritual solidarity with those suffering in Syria. We hope that Ramadan 2013 will become a Ramadan of repentance and reconciliation. Our special activities started in the surrounding of our first Peace Centre in the Akkar district of Lebanon with a March into Ramadan with Syrian refugee children and Lebanese volunteers of different confessions. We distributed Iftar Bags and will organise a couple of bigger Peace Iftars between Muslims, Christians and other faiths or convictions in Lebanon and throughout Europe. (Photos by our member Almedina Musić, July 2013)

A smiling girl crouches beside a white banner with Arabic writingA girl in a white headscarf kneels, holding the pole of a bannerA boy in an R&R T-shirt stands in front of children waving Lebanese flagsChildren in white T-shirts march behind a banner reading “Ahlan Ramadan” (Welcome, Ramadan)Two girls with drums stand next to two adults in the streetA boy carries a Lebanese flag across a roadChildren with flags and the “Welcome, Ramadan” banner march down a streetWomen and small children gather around a man in a cap in the evening lightChildren in white headscarves and T-shirts carry white bags with the R&R logo

Preparations for our first Peace Centre

This text is from our first year, 2013.

The preparations for the opening of our first Peace Centre for the Syrian youth in distress are entering their final phase. We finally obtained legal personality in Lebanon and we identified two main cities as the best places: Halba in the North and Job Jennine in the Bekaa. Both are just a few kilometres from the Syrian border; both have seen a huge influx of Syrian refugees; both are confessionally mixed. Now it is all about uniting the first Steering Committee of local moral authorities of different confessions and about finding and opening the house. Please visit our Facebook page for more pictures! (Photos by our member Constance Proux, April 2013)

An Orthodox priest reads a brochure while two men sit with him in a living roomA refugee family sits on chairs, the mother holding documents in an envelopeVisitors talk with men next to a row of blue tentsTents covered with blue tarpaulin on muddy groundTwo boys stand on bare ground in front of blue tentsMen sit around a coffee table in an office, talkingA three-storey house behind a fence and yellow wildflowersA three-storey house with balconies on a country roadA woman in a black headscarf talks with a man on a leather sofaA man in a cap and two women stand smiling in a caféTwo men stand in a field of yellow flowers with green hills behindA woman and a man stand in a sewing workshop

Field research in the Bekaa

This text is from our first year, 2013.

Confronted with refugee realities in the Western Bekaa, just a few kilometers from the Syrian border. People told us: at night they can hear the shelling of Damascus, just behind the mountains… February 2013. Many thanks to Félicité de Maupeou for the iPhone photos! Please visit our Facebook page for more pictures!

Tents of a refugee settlement at the edge of a waterlogged field under a grey skyA ploughed field in front of a town at the foot of a hill, under dark cloudsMakeshift shelters of tarpaulin with a water tank in frontWashing hangs on a line between tents under dark cloudsA shelter made from a printed advertising tarpaulin, next to a metal sheet with graffitiA girl in pink walks between sheltersA man in a cap talks with two smiling women, one holding a small child, outside a tentAn unfinished concrete building with tarpaulin over some of its openingsA man in a cap looks through bags of supplies in a bare room

Drawings of refugee children

This text is from our first year, 2013.

These drawings were given to us by Syrian refugee children in the North of Lebanon in January 2013. According to the UN, more than 50% of Syrian refugees are children. The motives of their drawings demonstrate drastically what they had to endure and to witness. Some show a normal life but most of them tell of atrocities and war.

Child’s drawing: tanks and a helicopter below mountains, the Syrian revolutionary flag and people holding a banner reading “Leave, Bashar”Child’s drawing: soldiers shooting at people, bodies on the ground, a tank, a tent and a mosqueChild’s drawing in four faint coloured panels with pencilled wordsChild’s drawing: tanks, revolutionary flags and people with banners, with the words “Homs” and “Love”Child’s drawing of butterflies, hearts and stars in bright coloursChild’s pencil drawing of a weeping eye above Arabic writing and a small revolutionary flagChild’s drawing of a house, a tree, birds, a river and children playingChild’s drawing of tanks under revolutionary flagsChild’s drawing of two tanks firing at each other under two different Syrian flags

Field research in Northern Lebanon

This text is from our early days.

Field visits in the North of Lebanon, together with Friedrich, our chairman, and Father William, R&R member from Ireland: visiting an informal Syrian refugee school in Berqayel, a couple of villages in the Akkar district, the Maronite Archbishop of Tripoli as well as Alawi and Sunni communities in Tripoli who are fighting each other. (Most photos by our member Constance Proux)

A crowd of children in a school corridor, some making the victory signChildren with school bags crowd towards the camera, making the victory signA man smiles among boys in a school roomA man in a dark coat talks with men in a corridorA boy in a blue jacket rests his chin on his handA man leans over a school desk, talking to boysA man laughs with a boy in a classroom doorwayTwo visitors talk with a priest in a living room with icons on the wallA priest talks with two visitors under an icon of the crossMen, one in clerical robes, walk along a muddy street by a busA blue truck drives along a wet, muddy streetMen sit with a sheikh in a room with a mural and yellow curtainsA young man explains something to a visitor in a dimly lit roomTwo boys stand in a damp, bare entrance hallA man in a cap talks with young men in a street

Photos from Syria by Virginie Nguyen

These photos are from 2012.

Taken in October 2012 – www.virginie-nguyen-hoang.be

Boys climb on a destroyed tank amid rubbleChildren sit by a small fire and a tyre in a damaged streetMedics treat a man with an injured face in a clinicChildren sell onions from a yellow cart to an old manA woman carrying a child walks past rubble in a street of damaged buildingsRubble seen through a hole in a wallTwo children stand next to a damaged car on a wet streetBoys with school books sit and stand in a streetA boy walks past two men, one carrying a rifle, in a narrow passageRuins of a wall painted with red starsChildren sit on a low wall under washing linesA row of white tents in a camp
Children sit on mats on the floor of a breeze-block room, working on sheets of paper
Classes began wherever there was room
Empty wooden benches and desks in a simple classroom with plank walls
A camp classroom before the school day
A volunteer in a patterned scarf raises her hand to greet children standing by the desks
An international volunteer greets the class
Rows of young children at wooden desks in a classroom with a window, a teacher at the front
The informal camp school for the younger children
Smiling children hold up their drawings of the earth in a classroom with a blackboard
Showing the day’s drawings
Teenagers at wooden desks write in their notebooks while a volunteer looks on
Older students at work
Children at long tables work in exercise books in a bright room with a whiteboard
Homework help in an outreach centre
Two girls write lines of letters on a large whiteboard
Practising writing on the whiteboard
A teacher in a red headscarf writes on the whiteboard while boys follow from their seats
A teacher at the whiteboard
A large class of children at tables, seen from the back of the room
A full classroom in an outreach centre
Adults sit around white tables while two women present at a whiteboard
A training session for our staff
Men and women sit in a circle of plastic chairs around tables, talking
Meeting with local partners
A woman in a headscarf and a young volunteer talk on a sofa
Visiting a refugee family
A man and a woman eat from a large pot on a small table
Sharing a meal during a family visit
A woman laughs as she offers food to a volunteer from her spoon
Hospitality during a home visit
A teacher in a headscarf hands out exercise books to children in a classroom
New exercise books for the children
A girl writes carefully on a worksheet at a wooden desk
Concentrating on the first letters
A boy in a white sweater bends over his worksheet, pencil in hand
Learning to write

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