Our first Peace Centre
The Peace Centre is the heart and soul of our association. It serves as open house to the youth of all local communities, as learning centre for refugee students and Lebanese, as home for our international volunteers and as central office for our operations.
Yet, the Peace Centre is more than a community centre or a guest house. The international volunteers living there are forming a small community on their own, mixed and open to all, which tries to live the principal of "spiritual solidarity" in action. Amongst the hundreds of volunteers who have lived and worked here, we have welcomed practicing Muslims, Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Hindu, as well as many atheists, agnostics or persons of other conviction or belief. We are not only living in diversity, but actively sharing it, discovering the culture of Abrahamic hospitality that has marked this region. Our Peace Centre is welcoming the youth of different confessions and groups, both Syrian and Lebanese. We chose a building in a safe, natural setting to give traumatised children and adolescents the possibility to breathe. In our Peace Centre, they are receiving psychosocial and educational support as well as material help. We have also distributed emergency aid to newly arriving refugees and continue to provide assistance for most urgent needs. Akkar, a place of hospitality
Akkar is a mixed region where a majority of Sunnis is living side by side with Christians and Alawites. In this region, family ties have crossed the Syrian border for many years. Akkar is also the poorest region of Lebanon that welcomes the highest percentage of refugees per capita. The ratio between refugee and host population reaches almost 1:1. The poorest are welcoming the poor. Here, sacred hospitality is still the norm. When hiking through the beautiful nature of this land, you will most certainly be obliged by the people you meet to make a detour to their house. "Hawlou, share a coffee or a tea with us!"
Akkar has been the home region for our first Peace Centre since its establishment in July 2013 in the municipality of Bkarzla, 12 km from the Syrian border. The location was chosen in consensus with our regional Steering Committee, composed by moral authorities of all communities present in this area. Over the years, further camp schools and learning centres have been established in different locations that are representing the diversity of the region, either as permanent branches, rented by R&R, or as guests of local associations. Despite the traditional sense of hospitality, Akkar has been shaken by sectarian strife when we first came to the region in 2012. There was open war between Sunni and Alawite villages, according to their affiliation with the belligerents of the Syrian war. Also some Christians were involved, according to the affiliation of their party. Today, civil peace has returned, also thanks to the work of religious leaders who started to meet amongst themselves on a monthly basis, following the convocation of our Steering Committee in 2013. We need your support to sustain our work for the future. Please click here for making a small donation. Every help counts! |
Cover photo: Bkarzla (Lebanon), in the heart of the Akkar region, place of our first Peace Centre
Location of our first Peace Centre in the Akkar Governorate, the most northern region of Lebanon, bordering Syria
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3-fold flyer about the Peace Centre and our work in English:
3-fold flyer about the Peace Centre and our work in French:
3-fold flyer about the Peace Centre and our work in German:
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