From Liverpool to Lebanon

Following on from our first trip to Beirut in 2019 Paul Martin and I return as the Refugee Solidarity Group and start to build international solidarity between people living in the Beddawi camp and scousers over 3000 miles away

Our first day in Lebanon we met up with ANERA, the main charity in Lebanon that we are working with. We travelled along the Lebanese coast to the Beddawi municipality where we met Mayor Hassan Ghamrawi, to follow up on our conversation twelve months earlier on town twinning.

The leader of Wirral Borough Council, Councillor Pat Hackett, was keen to discuss twinning Wirral and Beddawi. Mayor Ghamrawi proposed a visiting Lebanese delegation to the Wirral later this year. We look forward to discussing this with the Council Leader at our next meeting with him.

We went on to Beddawi’s refugee camp. The camp remains an area of severe deprivation and social isolation. Residents are not treated as Lebanese citizens: they remain Palestinian even though, as their welcome sign says, they have been 165 kilometres away from Palestinian borders since 1955.

The first visit was back to the Women’s Programme, an area with enormous potential due in large part to the number of ideas and the innovation amongst the women.

Despite budget and resource limitations, the programme has already created and runs courses in tailoring, nursing, catering and beauty therapy. As we walk around the building, work is taking place and classroom sessions have just finished. The programme is a genuine escape for the women within the camp and has so many possibilities for growth and development in a number of areas.

We spent time talking to the women who lead on the Women’s Programme about their vision and plans for the centre and the women who use it. As well as the programme being underfunded and under-resourced, there is a gap in delivering skills for women who want to make use of the training they receive. This becomes yet another barrier for those taking part, as the ability to create a sustainable business within the camp is limited. Our aim, as a group, is to build relationships alongside the resources and skills development that are clearly needed.

One of the ideas we all discussed is to develop the kitchen they have into a fully functional, industrial-style catering centre from where cooking skills and techniques can be taught and finessed. Meals can be produced onsite and then sold within the camp as well as to organisations, individuals and restaurants in nearby towns. To achieve this, we will need to fully strip out and redesign the kitchen area. Currently the kitchen space poorly laid out, there is very limited extraction and the age of the equipment means that the hygiene is an issue. ANERA will work with the Women’s Project to produce a full design/map of the kitchen. We will be fundraising to supply and fit the equipment that’s needed. One of our key partners, An Hour For Others will help us to fit out the kitchen.

Working with ANERA we will develop training programmes in food preparation, Health and Safety, food hygiene. It was agreed that we should also include business skills training, with units such as book-keeping, social media presence and stock control all included.

One idea put forward was that the tailoring programme can make all the uniforms including the chef whites.

An area of work that is in demand all across Lebanon is nursing. This is a three year university course. ANERA anticipate the cost to be around £2,000 per person. We will be fundraising to put women through this degree course.

Our next visit was to the sports facility within the camp and we were absolutely honoured to be welcomed by the entire management committee. We had a full discussion to find out what the committee needs to make life easier and better for all those involved. In short — they need everything! This ranges from footballs, training bibs, cones and other related equipment. The lack of suitable kit is somewhat tempered by the dozens of kits we were able to provide via Kit Aid and City of Liverpool FC.

The committee recognise they have gaps in their knowledge. Their main request was for the committee and their teams to receive accredited and qualified coaching. Discussions are now underway with LFC Foundation and Everton In The Community to help with some of the coaching needs. In Liverpool’s case, there will also be a request for unwanted kit, as their New Balance kit deal reaches an end later this year.

As a show of solidarity, we are hopeful that City of Liverpool FC will visit the camp to play in a friendly/tournament to mark the redevelopment of the facility.

The most obvious issue was on the pitch itself, it is no longer fit for purpose. The surface is so worn that it disintegrates when you touch it, there are whole sections that contain puddles and bumps. The Qatar Foundation are now in a position to fund the relaying of the football pitch and we look forward to seeing its results.

The surrounding area including the stand, the changing rooms, the netting and the walls are also in desperate need of refurbishment and brought up to standard. We hope to achieve at least some of this over the next 12 months in partnership with An Hour For Others, who have been particularly supportive of the project in recent weeks.

The hospital/medical unit within the camp has been supplied and funded in large part by ANERA, to whom the senior consultant is incredibly grateful. They were able to open a dialysis centre in 2017, a state-of-the-art facility that is regularly full as it serves thousands of people within this camp and other nearby refugee camps.

Supplies are donated both by ANERA and another NGO called The Healthcare Society. The supplies sometimes run out so the hospital have raise funds to buy their own. The hospital has limited cash reserves as it isn’t a ‘free’ hospital as we in the UK would expect. Their costs in the main are covered by UNRWA.

Given the relatively poor living environment in and around the camp, sickness is sadly inevitable. We are looking to help put together ‘hygiene packs’ for local residents. This may include items such as soap, toothbrushes, toothpaste, towels, sanitary products, etc. Once this is done, we will circulate how donors can help and contribute via an online platform/donation service.

Our final day was spent visiting Right To Play, an international not-for-profit organisation that empowers vulnerable children to overcome the effects of war, poverty, and disease all around the world through play. Right To Play are also working closely with the LFC Foundation. Right To Play Lebanon will be working in collaboration as they recognise the need for this project in Beddawi camp and surrounding area. Right To Play see this as a natural continuity for their work in the area and their on-going work with the local community.

We will be building a programme around education, health, peacebuilding (including the surrounding area of Beddawi camp), life skills objectives, working on capacity building for sports coaches (clinics), regular activities with children and young people, clubs management skills, improving the physical space.

This return trip is in stark contrast to the first trip, where we left with an overwhelming feeling of sadness at the plight of the camp’s residents. This trip was slightly different in that we left with a huge sense of hope in what can be achieved and what we have achieved so far.

We’re now the Refugee Solidarity Group, a Community Interest Company (CIC). We have a clear action plan, a legal form in which to campaign and a number of contacts across Lebanon.

We have a strong partnership now in Lebanon and a strong partnership here at home. By working in solidarity we really can make a difference.

Ann O’Byrne is a Liverpool Labour and Co-operative Councillor and Paul Martin is the Director of PLS Liverpool.