Humanitarian Assistance
LOST has long served as a frontline responder in Lebanon’s humanitarian landscape, stepping in decisively during moments of crisis to support individuals and families whose lives have been disrupted by conflict, displacement, and economic decline. Over the years, the organization has reached more than 100,000 people, delivering a wide array of lifesaving services that not only address immediate needs but also help communities preserve dignity, stability, and resilience in times of hardship.
Central to LOST’s humanitarian efforts is its strong reliance on cash-based assistance, a modality widely endorsed by several global humanitarian actors, flexibility, and respect for beneficiary agency. Through Cash for Food, families are empowered to purchase the food items they need most, supporting both nutritional security and local markets.
Complementing this, Multi-Purpose Cash Assistance (MPCA) gives households the ability to manage a variety of essential expenses, including rent, healthcare, education, and transportation, following international best practices that highlight dignity, choice, and holistic well-being.
In situations where cash alone may not fully meet community needs, or where markets are unstable, LOST also implements robust in-kind assistance programs. Throughout years of economic strain and regional instability, LOST has distributed substantial quantities of food parcels and non-food items (NFIs) to vulnerable households. These NFIs include hygiene kits, kitchen sets, cleaning supplies, mattresses, baby items, and emergency household materials. Such distributions are especially critical during acute crises, when families have exhausted their resources or when market access is severely constrained. This in-kind support aligns with standards promoted by agencies like UNHCR and OCHA, which recognize NFI distributions as essential for safeguarding health, dignity, and basic living conditions during emergencies.
LOST also utilizes voucher systems to ensure safe access to specific goods and services through vetted vendors, providing an additional layer of quality control and protection. Seasonal challenges are addressed with equal commitment. During harsh winters, LOST implements winterization support, either through cash for heating fuel or direct fuel deliveries, ensuring households can stay warm and protected. Additional distributions of clothing, blankets, and weather-appropriate essentials help displaced families, the elderly, and children withstand severe cold.
For individuals facing acute food insecurity, particularly those without kitchens or cooking supplies, LOST operates field kitchens that prepare and distribute hot meals. These meals provide immediate relief, protect nutritional well-being, and restore a measure of comfort and stability during difficult times.
Across all these interventions, cash assistance, vouchers, food and NFI distributions, winterization support, and hot meals, LOST’s work is grounded in internationally recognized humanitarian principles emphasizing dignity, timeliness, and effectiveness. By combining flexible modalities with direct in-kind support, LOST ensures that every household receives the type of assistance most appropriate to its circumstances, ultimately strengthening resilience and supporting pathways toward recovery.
Education and Protection
At LOST, it is firmly believed that education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world and the most effective way to break out of the cycle of poverty. LOST, through its projects in the education sector, plays a significant role in ensuring that every child, especially the poor, receives the opportunity to build a better future through education. LOST works at the grass-root level to strengthen the education system, spread awareness about the importance of education and enroll as many children as possible so they can thrive in life. The lack of education curbs an individual from reaching their full potential. Children who cannot go to school miss out on the opportunities of developing their skills and are unable to get dignified jobs. Lack of proper jobs and education can lead to social unrest and crimes, hampering the progress of the country. Education is important for the social and economic development of any nation. Education helps individuals make informed choices, join the workforce, and ensure that future generations are educated as well. Additionally, education is also important for an individual’s own well-being, as they can reach their full potential and live a fruitful life.
Education in every sense is one of the fundamental factors of development. No country can achieve sustainable economic development without substantial investment in human capital. Education enriches people’s understanding of themselves and the world. It improves the quality of their lives and leads to broad social benefits to individuals and society. LOST believes that improving education is vital since it boosts economic growth and increases the GDP of a country. It even reduces the infant mortality rate, increasing human life expectancy. Education is an important investment in a country as there are huge benefits. Education guarantees lifetime income; it promotes peace and reduces drop-out rates from schools and colleges and encourages healthy competition. Many children dropout form college as they are not aware of the advantages of college education. Moreover, education helps in making the right decisions at the time of conflicts.
LOST garners an impeccable reputation gained from years of delivering quality, transparency, and accountability results and services to the communities in Lebanon and in fulfilling its obligations to its stakeholders, including donors and target populations. This strength allows LOST to gain the respect of the public at large and of government officials, which facilitates its access to resources necessary to carry out its mission and execute its plans. Also, LOST employs capable local employees because of their understanding of their respective communities. This creates a concrete understanding of LOST’s areas of operations that have been accumulating for 21 years. The Lebanese Organization for Studies and Training has been focused on activities that promote educational interventions that have a direct and immediate effect on people’s education and skills aims to reduce their vulnerability. LOST takes high interest in such programs because they are designed to help improve the quality of life for marginalized people by providing them with access to educational services; thereby giving them hope to constructively contribute to their communities. This kind of work falls under LOST’s vision, since LOST aims to empower and engage people in Lebanon to live in dignity and peace based on the respect, protection, and fulfilment of Human Rights.
LOST Education initiatives are backed up with great support from several governmental and non- governmental institutions that are involved in educational issues at the national and sub- national levels. Due to the large dispersion of LOST throughout its community centers in Lebanon, LOST acquires strong connections with all the area’s stakeholders and public figures. This dispersion had acquired LOST a very-well established professional network in the region with partnerships with over 50 educational and research institutions, local governments and municipalities, Non-Governmental Organizations, public figures, government officials, and news media. In addition, LOST employs some of the brightest minds in Lebanon who are experienced in their fields of expertise and graduates from the top universities in Lebanon and some of the leading universities in the world. LOST staff’s primary strength is the training they receive from the leading international entities. This strength allows LOST to deliver high quality results to its stakeholders and to provide top-notch services to its target populations. LOST ensures that its employed staff are local and from areas in which they work. This guarantees the provision of the maximum possible job opportunities to those who are qualified and provides the added value of people working in their community for their community. This strength allows LOST to gain access to any resource which may be necessary to accomplish its objectives and carry out its plans. For instance, when it comes to outreaching beneficiaries, LOST has mastered the process through different strategies mainly including meeting people where they are and offering service and information in a variety of locations (including home visits) and at non-traditional times, especially after work hours. As mentioned earlier, the large dispersion of LOST centers had given it the privilege of reaching vast numbers of these areas’ population including the refugees as well. The quality of the services provided and the strong follow-up processes with targeted beneficiaries had created a trustworthy relationship between LOST and the community. Also, LOST’s offices in the community centers are always open and ready to serve individuals and the community. Furthermore, LOST’s partnerships with the ministries form a great support system to LOST’s initiatives. LOST has been officially recognized by the Ministry of Interior of the Republic of Lebanon, MEHE, MOPH, MOSA, and by the United Nations Development Program. This strength allows LOST to gaining the trust of the Lebanese public and of major donors and institutions.
Moreover, LOST coordinates sectoral and inter sectoral meetings to constantly keep the communities and partners updated and informed about the progress and well-being of operations. LOST also conducts regular meetings with the different UN agencies to maintain a high and updated level of coordination. In addition, LOST believes in benefiting the community therefore sharing data with sister organizations is routinely done regularly. LOST also shares an activity info report on its website with all its stakeholders updating on its precise activities and beneficiaries served per month on a sector-per-sector basis. Finally, LOST maintains strong relations with the local governments of the areas in which LOST conducts its operations.
Social Stability
Despite the profound impact of the Syria crisis on Lebanon, the country has done remarkably well to maintain stable community relations and accommodate displaced persons from Syria. This is prominent especially in the highly dense in refugee areas such Arsal region where LOST’s activities are implemented. The fact that tensions, where they exist, have rarely escalated to the point of inter-communal violence is a testament to the hospitality, increased level of social stability, and resilience of Lebanese host communities. It is also the product of the intensive work undertaken by LOST, in conjunction with international donors and agencies, and national civil society to extend effective humanitarian and stabilization support to the most affected. These activities have helped prevent underlying tensions from spilling-over into outright conflict. The peaceful co-existence of communities however remains fragile. In addition to Lebanon’s confessional political system, which rests on a delicate balance of representation between different groups, population pressure, the strain on municipalities, the rising economic crises, and the degrading livelihoods of vulnerable groups contribute to a situation in which social divisions could deepen and potentially rupture. In 56 cadasters the population has doubled in size, leaving the host population as a minority presence within their own administrative units. In a further 84 cadasters, the population has increased between 50 and 100 percent. While patterns of interaction between Syrians and host communities were initially positive, with most displaced Syrians saying that they felt ‘welcomed’ by the Lebanese when they first arrived, the prolonged socioeconomic impact of the crisis on vulnerable communities has contributed to a deterioration of the situation. This is probably best illustrated with the perception of personal security; most people report feeling less safe than before the crisis – and as many as 91 percent of host communities believe that the presence of displaced Syrians poses a security threat to them. As such LOST believes that the Social Stability sector is of high importance and through projects under this sector, it is contributing to stabilization by establishing and empowering local and national mechanisms that will build mutual accountability and capacities to address and mitigate existing or emerging drivers of conflict so as to prevent or alleviate conflict incidences within host communities and improve governance and longer-term development. Since 1999, LOST has worked extensively across the Bekaa and Baalbek-Hermel governorates on community mobilization, conflict prevention, peacebuilding, youth engagement, and local governance. It has led numerous multi-phase projects that mirror the structure and goals of the four milestones described, including participatory capacity assessments, stakeholder mapping, and training programs in mediation, conflict resolution, communication, and crisis response. Such projects include DAAM, Networks of Peace, WPL, YSAE I and II, Promoting the Role of Women’s Committee in Baalbek Municipality, Creating Syrian and Lebanese Youth Role Models to Promote Social Cohesion in Hermel, A Step Towards Social Stability. LOST has developed and delivered tailored curricula using participatory and experiential learning approaches for a range of local actors including municipal committees, youth groups, women-led networks, and civil society stakeholders. LOST has also demonstrated its ability to facilitate the development of community peace strategies and lead the implementation of grassroots social cohesion initiatives, including early warning mechanisms and response taskforces, through programs supported by Kingdom of Netherlands, UNICEF, RDPP II, UNDP, GIZ, EU, and others. In addition. LOST has a strong commitment towards empowering local CSOs in Lebanon and passes its valuable and rich experience to other actors. As such, LOST has built the capacity of 55 CSOs across Lebanon through structured training sessions aiming to enhance their internal capacities and structures.
Environment
LOST has developed strong institutional experience in implementing integrated environmental and climate adaptation interventions in the Bekaa Valley. Its programming approach combines sustainable resource management, climate-smart agricultural practices, and community-based behavioral change strategies, while actively positioning youth and local stakeholders as key actors in environmental stewardship. LOST’s environmental portfolio addresses critical regional challenges such as water scarcity, inefficient water use, environmental degradation, and limited awareness of climate risks.
LOST’s environmental interventions have included the design and promotion of sustainable water management solutions, particularly through rainwater harvesting schemes and awareness initiatives encouraging responsible water consumption at community, school, and university levels. These efforts have been improved through targeted behavioral change communication, development of educational materials, and the use of digital and social media tools to expand outreach and strengthen public understanding of water conservation and climate adaptation practices.
Complementing these efforts, LOST has implemented activities promoting the safe and efficient reuse of treated wastewater for agricultural purposes. This has involved raising awareness among farmers, communities, and local authorities on wastewater reuse, building farmers’ capacities on water-use efficient irrigation techniques, and facilitating coordination between municipalities, utility operators, and agricultural stakeholders. LOST has also collaborated with technical and research institutions to explore and enhance sustainable irrigation systems adapted to local environmental conditions.
In parallel, LOST has delivered climate-smart and environmentally sustainable agriculture interventions, including training farmers on permaculture and ecological farming techniques.
Across its environmental programming, LOST has consistently integrated youth engagement and community participation mechanisms. Youth have been mobilized as environmental stewards through the establishment of youth clubs, involvement in climate awareness initiatives, and participation in community greening and environmental volunteering activities. This participatory approach has strengthened local ownership, enhanced environmental awareness, and supported the sustainability of environmental outcomes.
Through this integrated model, LOST has demonstrated its capacity to deliver environmental interventions that combine technical solutions, behavioral change, and community-driven action, positioning the organization as a credible partner for environmental sustainability and climate resilience initiatives in the Bekaa Valley.
Women Empowerment
The issue of women’s empowerment and gender equality is at the top of agendas across the world, as gender inequality is widespread in all cultures. In developing countries, gender disparity is highly rampant compared to the developed countries. In many places around the world, women are the heart of their community. Global research, statistics, and outcomes show that when you invest in women and youth, you double your investment in families and communities. For example, companies greatly benefit from increasing employment and leadership opportunities for women, which is shown to increase organizational effectiveness and growth. It is estimated that companies with three or more women in senior management functions score higher in all dimensions of organizational performance. LOST believes that the Empowerment of women is a necessity for the very development of a society, since it enhances both the quality and the quantity of human resources available for development. Empowerment is one of the main procedural concerns when addressing human rights and development. The empowerment and autonomy of women and the improvement of their political, social, economic and health status is a highly important end in itself. In addition, it is essential for the achievement of sustainable development. Empowering women is the fundamental right of women. They can have equal rights to participate in education, society, economics and politics. They are allowed to have higher education and treated in the way like men. Without the equal inclusion of women in all areas of development initiatives, all the components of sustainable development cannot be achieved. LOST has partnered with several national and international donors including GAC, GPGF, AECID, UNFPA and the French Embassy in Lebanon in women empowerment projects, where these projects has resulted in creation of active women committees in the most unprivileged areas in Lebanon and these women were able to actively participate in the democratic life in their villages, benefit from new livelihood opportunities and support their families during times of crises.
Youth Empowerment
Over the past decade, youth empowerment has evolved into a central pillar of LOST’s institutional mandate and operational presence. The organization applies a comprehensive, market-driven approach that connects education pathways, vocational and technical training, digital competencies, work-based learning, entrepreneurship, and civic engagement. LOST’s youth programming is designed to strengthen employability, and to enhance resilience, economic participation, and social stability among vulnerable young people.
Since 2016, LOST has implemented a portfolio of large-scale, multi-year youth interventions targeting vulnerable Lebanese and Syrian youth across underserved regions. These interventions have delivered measurable outcomes in skills acquisition, employment readiness, and income generation. Through competency-based training models, structured work-readiness components, and short-term employment opportunities, thousands of youths have strengthened technical and transferable skills, improved access to livelihood opportunities, and increased their capacity to cope with economic uncertainty. LOST’s programming has consistently responded to market needs by supporting youth entry into both traditional and emerging sectors, including digital services, technology-enabled professions, renewable energy, and environmentally sustainable livelihoods.
Beyond economic outcomes, LOST’s youth interventions have generated broader developmental and social impacts. Programmes systematically integrate life skills, leadership development, and problem-solving capacities, equipping young people with competencies essential for long-term adaptability. Through the incorporation of civic engagement, community participation, and social cohesion elements, LOST positions youth as active contributors to local development rather than passive recipients of assistance. This integrated model has proven particularly impactful in fragile contexts, where youth engagement contributes to reduced vulnerability, strengthened community trust, and improved prospects for social stability.
Agriculture
“Agriculture is our wisest pursuit, because it will in the end contribute to real wealth, good morals, and happiness”. This saying by Thomas Jefferson stresses the idea that everything begins with the Motherland and that people should invest in, to contribute to the welfare of countries and humanity. Starting from this belief, and as part of its 2022-2025 strategy, the Lebanese Organization for Studies and Training (LOST) places improving living conditions and developing economic capabilities as a priority. This is mainly implemented through developing professional and managerial capacities that are needed and suitable for work in the productive sectors, especially in agriculture. Bekaa governorates relies primarily on agriculture as the main economic sector. Also, most of these governorates’ inhabitants work in agriculture and most of these farmers are small farmers that need support. Having mentioned these facts about the area, LOST has implemented plenty of agricultural projects. Agriculture is a vital sector that represents the backbone of local economy; the sector carries critical importance to local society and falls seamlessly into the Lebanese Organization for Studies and Training (LOST) livelihood strategies in supporting vulnerable communities.
One of LOST’s greatest achievements under this sector was the establishment of the Community Farm and the Agro-food incubator. The Community Farm in Bekaa Valley is at the service of the farmers, the citizens, and the environment. The Community Farm aims to support local agricultural production with the most modern and technical means to preserve both health and environment. It works to improve and develop the agricultural sector in the region through the provision of training courses and guidance for hundreds of farmers, in addition to the distribution of thousands of natural seedlings to them seasonally. Amongst the trainings that are provided in the community farms is irrigation techniques. The agricultural engineers and the civil engineers at LOST oversee the curricula that are being taught and the practical applications taking place including drip irrigation. The Community Farm also provides a permanent market for vegetables, healthy and natural crops, and manufactured food products for wholesale and retail markets. The Agro-Industrial incubator (AII), which consists of a set of specialized units, aims to expand the agro-food production and industry in Baalbek-Hermel and Bekaa. The agro-industrial incubator supports farmers and vulnerable households by raising their standard of living, encouraging agricultural practices, and providing them with the utilities and equipment required for strategic agriculture, lowering the cost of produce, creating job opportunities, and ultimately achieving food security. So far, the Agro-Industrial Incubator consists of a dairy factory and a cereal and pulses facility. The dairy factory is in operation and connected to a number of farmers in the region. The Agro-Industrial incubator aims to connect farmers together in order to form a Community of Practice with a green circular economy approach.
Food Security and Livelihood
LOST strongly believes that the ultimate objective of food security should be to ensure that all people at all times have both physical and economic access to food they need. Food Security has three basic aims: ensuring production of adequate food supplies, maximizing stability in the flow of supplies, and ensuring access to available supplies on the part of those who need them. The global food security challenge is straightforward: by 2050, the world must feed 9 billion people. The demand for food will be 60% greater than it is today. The United Nations has set ending hunger, achieving food security and improved nutrition, and promoting sustainable agriculture as the second of its 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for the year 2030. Resulting from LOST’s belief and commitment to the human’s most basic right to nourishment, LOST relies on multiple services and sources to ensure everyone in targeted areas in Lebanon has access to adequate food. Services include distribution of hot meal and food parcels to vulnerable families daily through the local field kitchen. These programs also coincide with Cash for Work programs supported by UN agencies. On the other hand, projects that aim at countering risks of malnutrition are implemented based on scientific methods and indicators. These tools, such as the Resilience Score and the Food Consumption Score among others highlight the neediest families and special cases and ensure more support to the vulnerable.
At LOST, the livelihood sector aims to convey, in full agreement with Lebanese work laws and guidelines, rapid effect work creation activities focusing on vulnerable groups, MSMEs, local farmers, and invest in the abilities of youngsters and adolescents. LOST is investing in labor-intensive domains to create jobs, upgrade skill, stimulate local markets and improve local economic growth. The general goal of the Livelihoods sector strategy is to move from reducing socio-economic shock of the Syria crisis on the most vulnerable groups, particularly youth and women, towards more longer-term recovery and stabilization, by improving their admittance to income and employment. The sector plans to do that by supporting the creation and conservation of long-term jobs and short-term employment opportunities in, whilst ensuring the respect of decent work conditions. The sector focuses on meeting market demand, contributing to the creation of new jobs and income generating opportunities (particularly for youth, women, persons with disabilities, and the most socio-economically vulnerable); while working simultaneously with governmental institutions to enable the environment for job creation, reduce the gender gap in the economy and enforce decent working conditions. LOST believes that improving the livelihoods of vulnerable groups will contribute to reducing the tensions between Lebanese host communities and displaced Syrians. Eventually, the Livelihoods sector strategy aims to link all livelihoods interventions, such as vocational training, financial and business development support and labor-intensive activities to the development of value chains, in addition by focusing on the demand side of the labor market, the Livelihoods sector will also support the private sector in creating and maintaining new job opportunities.
