Emergency Aid for Children Fleeing Syria

Thanks to your generosity, we have been able to support an important project called "Hand to Hand" to provide relief to 500 families from the cold winter. The project is in the Bekaa Valley in Lebanon close to the border with Syria where more than 400,000 people have settled after fleeing the violence in Syria.

The situation is dire for these families and has been exacerbated by a cold winter and severe storms. At least four Syrian refugees in Lebanon have died from the cold.

"The worst is at night," Asma, an eight year old refugee living in the Bekaa valley confided. "Sometimes I do not feel my feet and I am scared. Blankets are humid and we do not have wood to light a fire."

We are working with a community organization that has a strong track record in the area and provides relief and educational programming for families and children.

With a grant from MECA, they are purchasing and distributing warm children's clothing and gas for heaters to 500 refugee families. We are coordinating with other relief agencies to make sure we are reaching families in need who haven't been reached.

We will provide more details about the distribution and the families who received aid thanks to your support in the coming weeks and months. 

"“We kept asking Syrians what they needed. Education was their first priority. The schools – in tents, anywhere – was what they wanted. You can see cities destroyed, but you can’t have a generation destroyed.” - Maria Assi quoted in Robert Fisk article The 200,000 Syrian child refugees forced into slave labour in Lebanon

With your support, MECA is providing school supplies and shoes for 360 children who fled the violence in Syria with their families and are now being sheltered in Shatila and Nahr El-Bared Refugee Camps in Lebanon. The schools are providing the students with textbooks for free but many families cannot afford the notebooks, pens, and paper as well as math tools like rulers and compasses that their children need to take notes and complete their assignments. MECA is providing the funds to purchase these stationary kits as well as to outfit each child with a new pair of shoes.

Mahmoud from the Child and Youth Center (CYC) explains,  "The most current needs during this period is the protection of the education year for the children. We all have to do our best to help the children to continue to learn." 

Most of these 360 children are taking supplementary remedial education courses at CYC's centers in order to catch up to the level of their age group. CYC mixes education and other activities with the aim of encouraging the children not to drop out of school. It's an uphill battle but these supplies will be another way of providing the children and their families with the encouragement to continue going to school inspite of the many challenges.

Approximately 100 of these children have already dropped out of school but are taking educational courses to learn reading, computers, and other vocational skills. 

MECA also provided clothing to 140 children who are refugees from Syria living in the Baalbeck and Waivel Camp in Lebanon. There are 937 families seeking refuge from the war in Syria in this area, with more arriving every day. MECA staff visited a center in Baalbeck last spring that is providing food, hygiene kits, and psychosocial activities for refugee families with a focus on children. Their first request to MECA was to help them purchase clothing for children.