During the holidays, a time where love and joy are spread in the air, a time of giving and exchanging presents, youth of the “Skills for Active Youth” program who have acquired the Life Skills training, decided to celebrate the holidays in a different way this year.
The “Skills for Active Youth” program is implemented in partnership between UNICEF and LOST, and funded by the German government, the Kingdom of Netherlands, and UK Aid. It is a program which delivers various sorts of training programs to Lebanese and Syrian youth between the ages of 14 and 24,among which is the Life Skills program.
Youth of this program, through the multiple initiatives they implement every three months, decided to organize a clothing distribution campaign as a generous gesture that would cheer up Syrian refugees and vulnerable Lebanese families. These families who live in bad economic conditions, suffer in a cold wintery weather in times of holidays, with hearts warm enough on the inside but lack the minimal sort of shelter or decent clothing to keep them warm on the outside.
The vibe of positive energy was ignited on Friday, December 15th, 2018, at Baalbeck, Ras El Ein public park, where youth set atent in public, ready to accept clothing donations, after a series of preparations which took place over the past several weeks.
The clothing campaign was promoted for, over social media,LOST’s website, Facebook pages, announcements over speakers in neighborhoods, placement of banners, etc. Life Skills coaches and youth spread news among their family members, friends, and neighbors; they also divided themselves among groups across Baalbeck’s streets, forming stops, where they distributed brochures to passing cars and pedestrians to promote for the campaign.
LOST, by promoting for the campaign over its website and Facebook page attracted the attention of many international organizations and partner embassies, out of those who responded were: War Child Holland (WCH),International Medical Corps (IMC), and the Kingdom of Netherlands Embassy who were very enthusiastic about the initiative and donated lots of clothes in return.
The Governor of Baalbeck-Hermel, Mr. Bashir Khodr, promoted for the campaign through a video which was widespread over social media,encouraging people to donate clothes, as he participated in the donation as well.
On the morning of the 15th of December, piles of clothes were already stacked and kept on piling as more people were passing by the tent and dropping off bags of clothes. With music playing in the background, by youth of the Message Through Arts program (another program funded by the German government, UK Aid, and the Kingdom of Netherlands), life skills youth roaming around the tent, collecting clothes, welcoming donors, taking pictures,shooting videos, dancing and singing, attracting more people to the event, time passed by in a glimpse and the tent was already full before noon.
The next couple days, clothes were clean and placed neatlyi n the “Nehna La Baad” (We are for one another) center, for needy families to come and choose what is suitable for them. Of course, collecting names of needy families and validating their need, was a separate process on its own. LOST staff collected names of vulnerable families from municipalities, key figures,religious groups, political parties, etc. Once the names and addresses of these families were determined, a validation team from LOST passed by their houses to check their circumstances and conduct resilience tests. After validation was done, these families were either visited or received messages to pick up their vouchers,which enabled them to freely collect clothes from the store as anonymous beneficiaries,in an atmosphere of respect, having their dignity preserved, and not being deprived of the holiday spirit.
