We have founded a 2nd school project!
A few days ago we were in the second huge refugee ghetto in Beirut, the “Burj al Barajneh”. Between 30-40,000 refugees live here in their own microcosm – without running water, only with salt water and a maximum of one hour of electricity per day.
The large refugee camps are more like a district or ghetto with their multi-storey houses, built close together and separated only by narrow connecting streets. These neighborhoods have the highest population density in the world at 40,000 people per square kilometer! In addition to Palestinians, about 50% Syrian refugees now also live here.
Weeks before our departure, caravan founder Pascal received a call for help by email from the teacher Mirvat. Similar to Shatila, the problem here in Burj al Barajneh was that there was simply no money to rent classrooms. However, the needs of a school exceeded the size of the small roof terrace, on which the teachers have tried to give 120 children between the ages of 4 and 13 access to education. So the school in Burj al Barajneh was about to close.
After our first conversation, we promised the teachers that we would support their project in the long term. Nevertheless, the ladies couldn’t believe that a few days later we kept our promise and handed over the annual rent for the new school building (a three-room apartment) to the owner. The shining eyes of the teachers were in no way inferior to those of the children during the clown shows.
How unlikely is it that an email to a tiny NGO like the “Caravan of Humanity” will make your dream of having your own school come true? Not so unlikely! In our case rather: typical caravan!
We will also keep reporting about this school project in the future – we thank you for your support, which makes our help possible in the first place!