Ahmad Buzan, a 27-year-old Syrian refugee residing in Ersal is married with two children, who is responsible for supporting his wife, children, and his parents. Ahmad is a construction worker who works mainly in cement. The “construction season” is fading away and many are not constructing due to deteriorating economic situations. For that reason, Ahmad registered in the photovoltaics class, which is being offered by the Lebanese Organization for Studies and Training (LOST), and funded by International Medical Corps (IMC). This is part of the Empowering Vulnerable Communities through Livelihood initiative, which aims at training vulnerable individuals on certain skills, in order to link them to the labor market to obtain jobs. The fields that they are trained on were chosen based on a market assessment done by IMC.
Ahmad benefited greatly from the PV class offered by LOST. All electrical duties in his house were done by him instead of needing to hire someone, which is very costly. In addition, he is benefitting from the electrical duties, aside from the construction skills that he already has. In most cases, he is being hired for electrical works and construction works by the same person. Ahmad stated, “I registered in the class to expand my knowledge and to learn new things that will help me support my family further in these hard economic times”. This class has greatly helped Ahmad to increase his income, and ameliorated his standards of living.
