ROTARY PROJECTS WITH ROTARIANS FROM LEBANON It was the 2016 Rotary World Peace Conference where the initial seeds were planted, and our interest began in formulating and participating in a project(s) aimed at alleviating the plight of refugees and exploring how we, as Rotarians could help. At the time it was decided that several us present at the conference held in Ontario, California, would get together for a sort of round table discussion on possible methods of implementation. At that time the picture was much different from what today s scenario presents as there were quite a large number of refugees coming into the US and we were simply discussing some possible ways in which we could help. Now fast-forward to Fall 2018. With new refugee policies in place, the number arriving has dwindled to a trickle, and no meaningful program can be implemented here in the US. In October 2017, I was having a meeting with some Rotarians who were discussing the expansion of a couple of youth programs in the district which, though not Rotary conceived, were having a considerable amount of success due to the support of Rotary Clubs in the district. Rotary International President Ian Riseley, as we all know, called for the convening of six Rotary Presidential Peace Conferences during the first six months of the 2018 calendar year. The first was entitled the Environmental Sustainability and Peace Presidential Conference and was held in Vancouver, BC. The remaining five Presidential Peace Conferences were centered around Rotary s Six Areas of Focus with Peace being the underlying theme for all the conferences and they were held in cities around the world. The second such conference was the Water, Sanitation, Hygiene and Peace Presidential Conference and was held the weekend immediately following the Vancouver conference in Beirut, Lebanon. During this October 2017 meeting which I earlier alluded to, one of our members posed the question if there was anyone interested in attending the February Peace Conference in Lebanon, and following the conference see if we might visit some Rotarians and Rotary clubs to see if we could do something to help alleviate the refugee situation in Lebanon.
Lebanon is a country about the size of the state of Rhode Island with a population of about four million Lebanese citizens and one and a half to two million Syrian and Palestinian refugees. Alan Bazzaz, Past President of the Rotary Club of Lake Oswego, Oregon and his wife Fatma, and I decided to go to carry the mission to Lebanon. Alan has lived in the US for over 40 years but was born in Iraq and his wife was born in Beirut and both hold dual US and Iraqi citizenship. The absolute icing on top of the cake is that both Alan and Fatma have Arabic as their first language. Their guidance during the visit made all the difference in the world, not only because of their interpretive skills but also their understanding of the nuances that come with being native to that part of the world! The conference in Beirut itself was good, but the real productive time, at least from this Rotarian s point of view, was following up on the contacts we made at the conference by visiting actual Rotary clubs and/or Rotarians for coffee or dinner, whatever the timetables allowed. PEACE VILLAGE TRIPOLI, LEBANON - RC OF TRIPOLI METROPOLIS Approximately seventy-five miles north of Beirut on the Lebanese Coast lies the city of Tripoli, Lebanon. Tripoli is a city of about 500,000 and has several Rotary clubs. Alan and I met with three women who are members of the Rotary Club of Tripoli Cosmopolis, a relatively small club with a few more women than men. The women we met with were what you might call movers and shakers in their Rotary club and I wouldn t be a bit surprised if they have the same impact in their community. When we sat down for our first meeting, we made it clear that we were interested in partnering with them in a project of their own choosing and that we were aware that they know the needs of their community much better than we ever could. The first comment made by one of the women was that they were very concerned with the epidemic, as they saw it, of bullying in schools and would love to have a program or project whereby they could address this problem and perhaps begin the process of turning it around. I mentioned to them that although I didn t know if it would fit into the realm of possibly confronting the problem, that back in our communities we knew about a program called Peace
Village and I then proceeded to explain to them how it operates and that it deals with students ages six to thirteen years. They sounded most interested in the program and so I contacted the executive directors of Peace Village Global, who are in the Portland, Oregon area, and they proceeded to contact the Rotarians in Lebanon. Within a couple of weeks they had indicated that they would very much like to conduct a Peace Village at a school in their city. Upon arriving back home I found out that my home town of Newberg, Oregon, which had conducted Peace Village programs for the past five consecutive years, had received word from the organizing committee that due to administrative constraints, they had decided to take a one-year hiatus for Peace Village Newberg. On hearing this so soon after I got word that the women in Tripoli, Lebanon were hoping to have their very first Peace Village, I met with the Newberg Rotary Peace Committee and we agreed to ask our Club s foundation, which had already committed $5,000 to the Newberg Peace Village, if they would divert these funds to support the inaugural Tripoli Peace Village. They agreed to this, and we were also able to obtain $2,000 in District 5100 matching funds for scholarships for the Tripoli Peace Village participants.
MENTOR ARABIA - RC OF BEIRUT CEDARS Mentor Arabia http://mentorarabia.org/?lang=en a regional branch of Mentor International https://mentorinternational.org, which includes Mentor USA, was founded by the queen of Sweden, Silvia in partnership with the WHO. MA s objective is to empower children to avoid a life of drugs and violence, and choose a healthy life, including life-long learning, inclusion and equality. Mentor Arabia s mission is mentoring youth, 17-27, on job skills and peace building through education and competition. The typical program lasts 6-9 months, where youth are equipped with tools to become productive and to resolve problems peacefully. The combination of classroom lessons, plus field activities, culminates in a competition that tests the effectiveness of the program. The competition can be in art, such as painting, photography, or video, or in science such as robotics. Participants selected are a mix between local community members and Syrian refugees. For a Global Grant of around $100K, Mentor Arabia will customize a program with emphasis on Peacebuilding and Conflict resolution. It will select a combination of 40% Lebanese youth from various backgrounds (Muslims, Christians, Druze, etc.), and 60% Syrian refugee youth. They go through a minimum of 6 months education in mediation, conflict resolution, as well as vocational and other life skills training. At the end of the training, there will be a competition to exhibit their learning through a media or art project. Beirut Cedars RC will be the host club and believe they can contribute $20K to the project.
QARAOUN PROJECT (CLAY, SAND, GRAVEL, CRUSHER AND SEPERATOR) RC OF ZAHLEH-BEKAA Qaraoun is a small town 30 km from the Syrian border, comprised of 5000 Lebanese inhabitants and over 4800 Syrian refugees. There are 920 families and 250 of them live in tents, while the rest live in town in houses under construction, apartments or garages. Despite these numbers, Qaraoun has shown an immense sense of hospitality and a collective resilience that has enabled them to accommodate so many refugees peacefully and civilly. Municipalities in Lebanon are playing a more active role in the direction of the humanitarian response, security and stability problem solving, conflict prevention and peace building. They are using the refugee crisis as a positive opportunity to improve the city s infrastructure, services, and governance systems. Due to the lack of land available to be used as a dump site for construction trash and excavated materials people dump the refuse in scattered places. It is felt that the construction of a Clay, Sand, Gravel Separator will achieve many goals such as:
1- The closure all informal dump sites. 2- Creating more job opportunities 3- Generating income for the municipality by reusing the recycled products. This project falls within municipal land of 10,000m2. The Municipality of Qaraoun would run and maintain the project. Estimated Cost $160,000. RECYCLING CENTER & LANDFILL FACILITY - RC OF ALEY The Union of Municipalities of Gharb Aala and Chahhar (UMGAC) was formed in 2011 in response to a diminished capacity of the central government to provide sanitation services needed in the small communities. 14 villages in the county of Aley, state of Mt Lebanon, formed UMGAC to pool resources from village municipalities to do development projects for the communities. The estimated population in the area is approximately 47,450 Lebanese and 10,665 Syrian refugees. Since the garbage crisis in 2015, the municipalities have the responsibility of dealing with their own garbage. The crisis, in part, was a result of the explosion in population due to the Syrian refugees. The project: UMGAC was charged with finding a way to recycle and determine appropriate landfills for non-recyclables. It opened a modest sorting facility in the village of Ainab that sorts plastic, tin/aluminum, glass and cardboard stock. They also compact, bail, and transport material to purchasers. The current facility treats roughly 20% of the total trash disposed. It also does some separation of organic material and collecting/cleaning and bailing of plastic bags. The project objective is to expand the sorting capacity and do much of the sorting at the source. It calls for a larger compactor, a forklift, and recycling bins to be distributed to over 1000 collection points in the village of Baissour. The expected results are: - Closure of the dump site in Baissour - Increase in the use of Syrian labor - Increase in revenue from selling the recyclables
Closure of the dump site, located on a ridge at the edge of town promises to reduce leaching into the water basin. Thousands of people in the valley rely on the water produced by snow melt in the mountains. Both Ainab and Baissour villages are located in the area of Mt. Lebanon. Photos of the area below.
We don t know at this time how many of these proposed projects we will be able to bring to fruition, but we have been extremely impressed by the professionalism and dedication of the Lebanese Rotarians wherever we have met them throughout their country.