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Our educational activities

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.

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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 class rooms 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

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 sucessfully. Many of 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 equiping 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!

Start of Ramadan activities

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)

Preparations for our first Peace Centre

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)

Field research in the Bekaa

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!

Drawings of refugee children

These drawings were given to us by Syrien 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.

Field research in Northern Lebanon

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)