November 15, 2011 (Beirut) – The Live Lebanon initiative is currently in the process of implementing eight different projects throughout the Lebanese territory. The current projects are spread out across all major regions and are estimated to reach an estimated almost 20,000 direct beneficiaries. Live Lebanon’s project implementation schedule is directly related to the availability of funding, and recent additions in funding from its Goodwill Ambassadors have allowed it to expand its efforts.
Live Lebanon organizes its projects under four different campaigns: Young, Healthy, Green, and Prosperous, in order to strategically coordinate its actions within the Millennium Development Goals.
The Young Lebanon projects underway are taking place in four different regions. The Kfardines project, in the Bekaa, is helping special-needs children in and around the municipality gain access to much-needed therapeutic, social, and academic services. Live Lebanon is collaborating with the NGO Association of the Hearts of Light to furnish local facilities with medical therapy equipment, and to procure a minibus that special-needs children can be transported between the center and their often-remote homes. Live Lebanon has delivered and installed the equipment, and is now working on securing the bus.
In Nabatieh, the Freiha Hajj Ali School is to be completely rehabilitated as its current unsafe and deteriorating conditions are hampering the performance ofits students and teachers. The vast amount of research showing that attendance and teacher motivation are correlated to the quality of the learning environment is at the heart of the Young Lebanon campaign’s purpose. Contracting companies are being selected and the work is set to begin in the coming weeks. Live Lebanon is looking forward to welcoming a team of volunteers from abroad who will come and contribute to the implementation of this project.
In the North, Live Lebanon is working in partnership with the municipality of Ain Yaccoub to build basketball and volleyball facilities for the youth of the village and surrounding area. This project is under implementation and construction has begun at the worksite. The site, located next to a local school, will also feature a spectator area which Live Lebanon hopes will help facilitate social interaction between the villages in the area. Because the courts are situated in the mountainous terrain of North Lebanon, excavation processes had to be undertaken before construction could begin.
The Paradis d’Enfants is a not-for-profit primary school that offers high quality education at very minimal costs to Jounieh and the surrounding area’s most vulnerable families. Live Lebanon is working to provide this school with a covered recreation area so that the students have a suitable location to play during the rainy winter months. Furthermore, Live Lebanon envisions providing the school with funding for arts supplies and basic educational equipment such as lockers.
The two current Green Lebanon projects involve the development of a water distribution networks. In Tal Dnoub, in the Bekaa, a local reservoir is to be rehabilitated and linked to local households via underground piping, allowing the residents of the village uninterrupted access to running water. A project in the South in the village of Aramta is set to upgrade the village’s water filtration capabilities to render a natural spring fit to drink for the residents and neighbors of the municipality.
In Ali al-Nahri, also in the Bekaa, a piping system will connect an area of deprived households in the village to a nearby well, allowing residents there to benefit from adequate access to drinking water for the first time. The recent allocation of funds for the Ali al-Nahri project makes this exciting endeavor one of Live Lebanon’s newest assignments.
A Prosperous Lebanon project in the southern municipality of Ain Qenya, for which the initiative has also recently received funds, entails the creation of a water catchment pond so that farmers in the area who face periodic drought conditions in the summertime can store water from the rainy winter months to irrigate their crops. This innovative approach to water management has proven effective at mitigating the effects of climate change on agriculture production around the world.
Established in November 2009 and administered directly by the UNDP in Lebanon, Live Lebanon operates as a neutral channel through which expatriate communities can provide direct support to the development of Lebanon’s underprivileged communities. Live Lebanon seeks to leverage the enormous contribution that those living abroad can provide to their home country. It does so by building a platform, www.livelebanon.org, through which Lebanese expatriates may serve as agents of positive change for underprivileged Lebanese communities, even while living abroad.