Lebanon

Blog Post:  Posted April 22, 2010, 5:24 pm by Greg Tuke

A better translation

Country: Lebanon

Topics: Youth

Lebanese men pass their citizenship on to their children. Lebanese women, by law in Lebanon, cannot — unless they are married to a Lebanese man.

I recently learned of this disturbing law. And I immediately wondered how can this be in this day and age? How did it become law in Lebanon some 85 years ago and still hold till this day? What does the man or woman in the street in Lebanon think of this?

Until recently, it was nearly impossible to find out directly the answer to such a question from a Lebanese native, unless they spoke English. Or unless I learned some Arabic real quick.

Sure, there are automatic translations that Google and others can do, but they're pretty lame. It’s like when I travel with my basic Spanish and go to a Guatemala: I can ask directions, find a place to eat and say "hello" just fine, but don’t ask me to explain why I don’t believe in capital punishment to a local. Things really get lost in the translation.

But today, thanks to a new website called Meedan, all that has changed. Whether you write in English or Arabic, what you say gets translated into the other language automatically, a human translator reviews it and refines it, and posts the new and improved translation.

As a result, I found out that lots of people care about this Lebanese nationality law, and in fact pressure has been applied to Parliament recently by many young people there. And now it may be on the verge of changing.

I also found out that the reason for the law is far more than simple discrimination. It relates to past wars — specifically, who lives in the country now and who lives elsewhere as a result. It relates to ethnic and religious reasons.

It is, in a word, complex. Still unfair, I concluded, but now after having written and discussed the issue with numerous Arab-language young people, I understand much better the dynamics of the law. And young people in Lebanon, as a result of the on-line conversations with others around the world, now understand strategies and tactics used elsewhere to change similar kinds of laws.

It would be a human tragedy if we all just spoke one language. Just as it would be a tragedy if our forests only grew one kind of plant. But by being able to communicate accurately across our various languages is a huge step, as noted in a recent article in The Christian Science Monitor.

Nothing will ever surpass the power of meeting face to face to cultivate understanding across cultures. And if our language is different, nothing beats having someone right there who can translate what we are saying to each other. Last month, we did just that when we brought young leaders from Jordan, Lebanon, the U.S. and the UK together in Edinburgh for our first Global Citizen Corps International Youth Festival.

It was great, but it was just 16 youth. How do we do this in a way that affects thousands, even millions? This creates one of the key paths.

Blog Post:  Posted February 22, 2010, 1:15 pm by Steve Haley

Transparency and accountability...in businesses? In Lebanon?

Country: Lebanon

Topics: Economic Development, Civil Society

I hate microphones. It generally means I am speaking to so many people that it too impersonal or too important.

My most recent adventure with a microphone was a conference about transparency and accountability, primarily in the private sector — a major obstacle to development in Lebanon. Mercy Corps’ Vision for Change emphasizes the requirement that public, private and civil society sectors work together for communities to develop into more secure, just, and productive societies. Nowhere could this be more true than in Lebanon, where a strong business community and struggling central government make corporate buy-in to change essential. The unfortunate reality of Lebanon is that its system of corruption actually functions, but also functions to exclude a large number of the nation’s population from the opportunities of its active and vibrant enterprises.

So comes the big question — how do you convince those who have been successful in the existing system that it is in their interest to change the system? That’s exactly what we tried to do in coordination with the American Lebanese Chamber of Commerce with a conference on Transparency and Accountability: Key Factors in Development.

My role along with my co-panelist, Fouad Zmokhol, was to give examples of success stories where civil society and private sector tackled corruption together. Mr. Zmokhol, a successful Lebanese businessman and active board member of the Lebanese Transparency Association, started us off with the hard truth — there are no success stories.

We both brought some optimism to the bleak past however, with the idea that the formula for success is out there somewhere — and our collective minds will find it, but in order for a sustainable programme to work, civil society organisations and for-profit businesses need to look for areas of mission convergence. That means we need to find a programme that is not only mutually beneficial to both partners, but also meets the social mission of the non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and the profit mission of the company.

Impossible? Not really.

Our Guatemala team found an innovative way to connect small farmers to a huge market in collaboration with mega-store Walmart while providing Walmart to a more efficient local source of produce. Locally, here in Lebanon, we designed a (yet unfunded) programme in coordination with local businesses, including HSBC Bank, which would expand our current programme for integrating people with disabilities into the job market through directed job training programmes. Our mission of greater inclusion meets human resources managers’ mission of finding qualified new team members.

What the successful model will be for collaboration on transparency will be, I don’t know — but the conference gave all of the parties interested in finding a solution the chance to meet and begin to exchange ideas. And, with people like Fouad Zmokhol looking for answers with Mercy Corps, I have no doubt we’ll find it.

Posted December 2, 2009 by Ross Hornsey

Foundations for a Strong Future: Youth in Lebanon and Jordan Promote Cultural Heritage

Country: Lebanon

Topics: Economic Development, Education, Marginalized Groups, Technology & Internet, Youth

Daily life in Lebanon and Jordan means contending with a large number of social and economic pressures and many young people — who make up the vast majority of the population — have lost sight of their cultural heritage. As well as finding themselves faced with high unemployment and other harmful effects caused by conflict and political instability, trends show that many value consumer culture much higher than cultural heritage. Yet with Mercy Corps’ assistance and funding from the European Commission, this has begun to change.

The ‘Foundations for a Strong Future’ programme, made possible through funding from the European Union, aims to overcome the challenges of preserving and promoting cultural heritage in Lebanon and Jordan. Through participation in local research, multimedia exhibitions and community outreach programmes, many youths have now begun to rediscover their nations’ rich cultural heritage and identities.

The national museums of Lebanon and Jordan which, due to a lack of funding and resources have previously been prevented from engaging fully with visitors, are now working with Mercy Corps to become more engaged with young people. The museums formerly contained few child- or youth-friendly materials but, under this project, multimedia learning towers will be set up. These multimedia exhibits will contain a wealth of accessible information and activities, including proposed tour routes, scavenger hunts and links to modern aspects of cultural heritage.

Mercy Corps will also provide teachers and students with a ‘Cultural Heritage Toolkit’ that provides background information and lesson plans for making learning fun and accessible to all. These toolkits are helping Lebanese and Jordanian youths to develop their knowledge and discover new cultural experiences

A vital part of this programme is to encourage young people to share their cultural heritage with those outside their own communities and to build awareness through greater interaction. Mercy Corps has already conducted youth programmes in 12 different regions of Lebanon and Jordan. A group of around 150 youths have been selected to participate in a wide range of youth leadership activities and learning programmes. Activities include photography and filming workshops, participation in focus groups and visits to cultural sites.

On one such visit, 12 youths visited the Assaha traditional village in the Beirut suburb of Bourj el Barajneh. The participants spent the day tasting traditional foods, learning about traditional crafts and taking a guided tour around the museum.

To ensure the level of interest in cultural heritage is maintained and can continue to grow, Mercy Corps is also conducting cultural heritage training. In August, youth training courses were conducted in several areas across Lebanon and Jordan, including a two-day course in each of the 12 areas. The training course was specifically designed to be interactive, and the participants showed great enthusiasm for developing their own multimedia projects, grasping the medium as an ideal way to discuss further ideas and share with each other their fears, hopes and expectations for the future. In October and November, this culminated with youth in the 12 areas proudly exhibiting their multimedia cultural heritage projects to their communities and peers.

www.euromedheritage.net

Blog Post:  Posted October 28, 2009, 2:48 pm by Greg Tuke

A Palestinian camp — not what you might expect

Country: Lebanon

Topics: Youth, Displacement, Conflict & War

I love to camp. I associate it with mountain meadows, alpine flowers, a warm fire, a cold beer. And the occasional bear.

So when I heard I would be going to a Palestinian camp in Lebanon, I had a really hard time wrapping my brain around it.

I imagined there being tents in a desert, far from the urban landscape. Hot, dusty, maybe a fence around it just to give it a sense of place.

This was my second trip to the Middle East, to work with young adult leaders who are part of the Mercy Corps’ Global Citizen Corps programme. Meeting these young people throughout the Middle East continues to be a daily myth-busting experience. This month, I found out what it means to be a Palestinian camper.

The first thing you notice as you come upon the camp is that it is anything but a camp. It sits just on the outskirts of Tripoli, one of the largest cities in Lebanon, and looks like a poor urban neighborhood of several thousand people. There is a fence, but it’s impenetrable, and you need a passport and a pre-approved visa to get in. The guards are heavily armed, and I am pretty sure it’s not about the bears.

We got the OK to enter, the five of us in a Mercy Corps vehicle, and drove several hundred yards inside where we stopped and got out. The roads are dusty and the “tents" are concrete, bland-looking structures. It feels solemn, sad, and temporary. But it has been here for half a century. It is but one of 59 camps, housing a total of three million Palestinians.

In addition to meeting with a local youth group that Mercy Corps works with and hoping to get involved in the youth leadership programme where they discuss issues on-line and take action together, we visited a local after-school youth centre run by Palestinian leaders from the camp.

We walked in as children were singing and dancing, and playing a game much like musical chairs. The walls were filled with colourful youth-produced art, along with a shocking black and white photo, showing two young people from Hiroshima at gunpoint, with hands held high in the air.

Startled to see such a photo, I asked the director what it was about. He told me that it is part of the trainings they do to let youth know that, no matter how difficult times can get, people are resilient and can find a way to improve their lives after tragic circumstances like Hiroshima.

“Hope is what we most need," he said, "and seeing examples of others who have overcome tough times is very important for us”.

This is the most consistent myth-busting discovery in my work with young people I meet in the Middle East. And it was further reinforced reading Children of Jihad on my plane ride home. It is written by Jared Cohen, a young Jewish American who recently spent two years traveling in these same Middle East countries talking to young people to find out how they see themselves and the world. He too, talked with youth in Palestinian camps, Hezbollah youth groups, and on university campuses. He concludes his riveting book with this:

I can say from my own experience, living and traveling in this volatile part of the world, that reaching this under-thirty generation is our best hope for greater communication — but only if we engage with them on their own terms. Amid the despair of war, poverty, and oppression, they are the ones who respond to creativity. Could it be that they will also find creative solutions for peace someday?

Like us, young people in the Middle East all desire better education; they all have a fascination with innovative uses of technology; they all get bored and crave adventure and entertainment; they all seek interaction and global connectivity; and more than anything, they all want to feel as though they belong, have a purpose in this world, and can have a better life. Young people in the Middle East are reachable — and they could be waiting to hear from us.

Blog Post:  Posted October 19, 2009, 9:50 am by Steve Haley

Promoting peace in northern Lebanon

Country: Lebanon

Topics: Peaceful Change, Sports

As part of Mercy Corps' efforts to reach conflict-affected youth in Lebanon, Mercy Corps and Najdeh Association set up a five-day football tournament in September.

The tournament included 13 teams from Nahr el Bared, a Palestinian refugee camp in northern Lebanon. The winning team played a friendly game on the fifth day with Al Koucheh football team (Akkar). This finale took place on the day commemorating the International Day of Peace, just one day before the Ramadan holidays. Around 80 Lebanese and Palestinians ages 18 to 30 attended the final game.

This activity is a part of the "One Day One Goal" campaign that sets up Peace Day football matches in conflict areas around the world, and was developed by the camp's youth committee to address psychosocial issues related to the youth population within the camp and with the surrounding communities.

The game's significance is in line with one of the aims of the broader project, funded by the European Community Humanitarian Aid Office, or ECHO, of reconciliation and dialogue between camp residents and the surrounding Lebanese community.

The tournament had a very positive impact on the participating youth of the camp because it allowed for the restoration of a tradition that existed before the crisis in 2007, when the camp was completely destroyed. It gave a measure of hope and assurance although slight vis-a-vis the return to normalcy in the camp.

Another very salient positive effect was that it allowed camp youth and Lebanese youth from the surrounding area to participate together in a safe and constructive activity which acts to normalize relations between Lebanese and Palestinian communities. This could be gleaned from remarks of both players and supporters.

One supporter said, "The last game was the most striking because it reawakened hope through interaction of Palestinian and Lebanese youth and revealed a sense of camaraderie and healthy competition ... and this will lead to the return of positive relations between the two communities."

One of the players alluded to the positive effect of the tournament saying that the next step would be to host Lebanese teams at the camp. Another woman added, "These activities should be regular between youth and other members from both communities since we lived all our lives as one community."

Finally, it's worth mentioning that this tournament was a starting point to recreate positive perceptions between the Lebanese and Palestinian youth with sports as an entry point — an activity that should be focused on and encouraged on a larger scale.

Posted July 8, 2008 by Dahlia Khoury

Making Movies

Country: Lebanon

Topics: Children

A disenchanted male teenager spends his days sleeping and his nights drinking and wandering the roads looking for trouble. The emptiness of daily life provides the focus for the film "Good Morning," produced by Lebanese teenagers Ranine Andraus, Christian Andraus and Shadi Sader.

The film was made as part of a Mercy Corps project called The Eyes of the Youth. It's aimed at enhancing the artistic skills of teens in southern Lebanon, and giving them an outlet to express their needs, aspirations and dreams. The project is also linked to our Connected Communities programme, which leverages the power of information-communications technology to help Lebanese address their social and economic development challenges.

Nine youth participated in the four-month project, which guided them through the writing and scene-making process and included technical trainings in lighting, sequencing, sound editing and more.

In all, the group produced three films. In addition to "Good Morning," two girls produced "Fatima," the true story of a young girl suffering from a kidney dysfunction who makes the long trip from Bint Jbeil to Tyre twice a week for dialysis. The film features a poignant interview with Fatima in which she tells viewers about her sister who donated a kidney for her, all the pain she is enduring and her love of life and the support her family is providing.

The third film, "There is Nothing," chronicles the boredom of youth in Bint Jbeil much like "Good Morning." Kids hang out on the streets, play cards, and bemoan that there are no cafes, restaurants, cinemas or other forms of entertainment like in Beirut.

"After the end of the training, I learned how to produce a film from A to Z," says Christian, 15. "A club in our village asked me to produce a documentary on the history of Ain-Ebel," a small village nestled in the southern Lebanese mountains. "I was very happy to accept."

At the end of the project, the youth participants showed and discussed their films with parents, local associations and government officials.

"This project demonstrated the extent to which youth are searching for opportunities to express themselves and participate in the life of their communities," says Sarah Warren, Mercy Corps' country director in Lebanon. "We'll build on this experience by continuing to develop programmes that harness the power of communications technology to help youth have greater access to information, social and economic opportunities, as well as access to new media that allow them to express themselves."

Posted July 8, 2008 by Nadine Baroud

Tasting Newfound Success

Country: Lebanon

Topics: Agriculture, Economic Development

Sheikh Mahmoud Derbieh is a 40-year-old father of three from Hasbaya region in the farming region of southern Lebanon. He's an olive farmer who runs a food shop and an olive mill. And he's getting support from Mercy Corps to improve the quality of the olive oil he produces and to start his own label — changes that have translated into higher sales.

Two Mercy Corps projects focus on improving the olive-oil and forage-crop industries in southern Lebanon through technical assistance and training. We're addressing problems facing farmers and providing assistance to improve the quality and sales of their produce. Additional infrastructure enhancements will improve access to lands and increase productivity, reducing costs to both producers and consumers.

Mahmoud has been part of one of the projects, dubbed Expanding Economic Opportunities, since it began in late 2005. He received new equipment that helped decrease the acidity of his oil, and sold an extra 130 tanks of oil through Mercy Corps-sponsored events and fairs. At Souk el Tayeb, a weekly Beirut vegetable market, ten project farmers got together to sell their olive oil and honey products, Mahmoud made contacts with a buyer who now purchases 20 olive oil tanks — each with 20 liters worth of oil — every month to export to Africa and the Middle East.

Still another buyer, from Saudia Arabia, recently purchased a total of 1,500 olive-oil tanks — an order so large that it had to be spread among farmers in the region. "The oil was collected mainly from the millers who had modern mills and from the people who pressed in these mills," he explained. "It meant that many beneficiaries from the project had the chance to sell their olive oil."

Mahmoud's other retail successes include enlisting a Beirut hotel as a new customer and introducing a brand label to increase grocery-store sales.

Olives are among oldest known cultivated trees in the world. And thanks to Mercy Corps, Lebanese who grow and process their bitter fruits are tasting newfound success.

Posted August 1, 2007 by Joy Portella

Youth Taking the Reins of Recovery

Country: Lebanon

Topics: Children

Beirut, Lebanon — Burj al Barajneh is a tough part of town. Entering this southern neighborhood of Beirut is like entering another world — the city's many well-heeled, cosmopolitan dwellers are replaced by women in traditional Islamic cover and families in densely packed apartments. The poverty is palpable, and it's so hot and crowded that just breathing is difficult. Burj al Barajneh is, by every indicator, an urban slum.

It's also a war-torn slum. Burj al Barajneh is considered a Hezbollah stronghold, and last summer's war between Israel and Hezbollah devastated the neighborhood — killing civilians, destroying homes and public facilities, and knocking out critical transportation infrastructure. Rebuilding has progressed rapidly, but the shells of bombed-out apartment houses and bridges are still easy to find.

The grind of life in Burj al Barajneh is most difficult on children. Looking out on the crowded, dusty streets, I couldn't imagine where kids would play or find any sense of relief. Then I saw the Mercy Corps Centre for Excellence, which just opened in May. From the outside, the building looks new, clean and orderly — in sharp contrast with the rest of the neighborhood. But it's what goes on inside that is truly exciting.

The Centre for Excellence serves a number of roles: technology training hub, educational facility and small business incubator. It is meant to be a place where the community, particularly young people, can come together and learn, work, connect with the outside world and gain access to technology tools they wouldn't otherwise have. Additional Centers for Excellence are planned in Lebanon; the one in Burj al Barajneh is the first.

The Centre's manager Lina Harakeh greeted us warmly before returning to a computer tutorial with her student, a 30-something man in a wheelchair. We passed rooms of high-school students studying for exams and young girls meticulously colouring depictions of "Dora the Explorer." In the main computer room, approximately 20 stations were occupied by children and adolescents concentrating on everything from IM chats to homework to the basics of PowerPoint.

The Centre's social worker Sherine and the IT instructor Hussein told us that the already-full space is usually more crowded but many high school students were in exams. "We're expecting heavy traffic this summer," explained Sherine. "The kids in this neighborhood don't have anywhere to go or anything to do." The high demand has caused the Centre to put time limits on how long each child can use a computer.

I was amazed by a little boy masterfully manipulating PowerPoint. "The adults need more help than the kids," noted Hussein. "Some of them have never even turned on a computer before, so we sometimes need to personally sit and guide them. But the kids pick things up without any problem."

This was a common theme: Time and again in Lebanon I saw young people solving problems and driving progress in a way that many adults could not:

• Leadership groups for high school students in Burj al Barajneh and Bourj Hammoud, an underserved Armenian neighborhood of Beirut, told me about their plans to contribute positively to their communities and pursue higher education.
• At a lively retreat for young people training to be community mobilizers, I heard debates on topics ranging from the status of Lebanese women to the current security and political difficulties.
• In the eastern city of Baalbek, also hit hard by last summer's war, Mercy Corps' work with our local partner LOST is helping young people to undertake environmental cleanup campaigns, paint public murals and run a wildly popular basketball tournament.

During my three days touring these and other projects in Lebanon, I saw a country filled with equal measures of promise and doubt — a strong tradition of tolerance, openness and prosperity marred by repeated episodes of violence and political impasse. Mercy Corps understands that a peaceful Lebanon will be built on the foundation of young, motivated leaders. Like the little boy who so easily picked up PowerPoint, young people are naturals at building and spreading hope.

You can help us respond to crisis, rebuild and help create new opportunities with a generous donation to our Emergency Response fund.