Alman, Lebanon: European Union Ambassador Angelina Eichhorst promised Thursday to provide more support to Lebanese communities hosting Syrian refugees during a visit to two EU-funded projects on the occasion of World Refugee Day. “We are working in many areas with municipalities on getting basic services like infrastructure, health care, and education. Many mayors told us they don’t have sewage systems or electricity,” Eichhorst said. “We want to assure you, as the European Union, we are reinforcing our support to the municipalities that need it.”
By Rayane Abou Jaoude
Eichhorst and the regional representative of the UNHCR, Ninette Kelly, accompanied by representatives of EU member states embassies, visited two EU-funded projects for Syrian refugees implemented by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and partner non-governmental organizations to mark the occasion.
One project, supported by nonprofit organization Premiere Urgence-Aide Medicale Internationale, which is funded by the EU, has been allocated $2.24 million to improve access to safe housing and hygienic sanitation facilities in makeshift Syrian settlements across Lebanon.
One such area is in the village of Alman in the Chouf, where 13 families who fled the war in Syria have been taking refuge in abandoned buildings, improvised homes and even parking garages, paying rent from their own LL300,000 monthly salary. Barefoot children run across rocks and stones amid decaying homes that are too hot in summer, and too cold in winter.
Husbands are pick fruit and work construction jobs to get by, and there is no running water or electricity.
Upon her arrival, Eichhorst sat with families in their homes, holding their children and inquiring about their living conditions.
However, with more refugees coming every day, the EU says the necessities being covered are still not enough.
“We needed quicker methodologies to support the refugees, which is why we created sealing off kits, aimed at protecting the houses’ doors and windows” said Mona Imad, an EU program officer. With over 500,000 registered refugees, as opposed to 11,000 in January 2012, the needs are quickly outstripping capabilities.
“We are doing the minimum needed in very little time in order to maintain the refugees’ dignity,” Imad added.
Refugee Ahmad Jaber, whose son is ill and whose entire family lives in a makeshift home with a single room and a small kitchen that also serves as a bathroom, says he has to pay for everything himself.
“We barely make rent, which is a $100 a month,” he said. “Everything in the house is our own. We received some money to rebuild the roof and walls, but that’s about it.” The only thing keeping the families going are each other, as they all hail from the northwestern province of Idlib.
PU-AMI provides the families with hygiene kits and six vouchers a month, each worth LL40,000, for food and other supplies.
But with no running water, families have to assign a day for bathing, and another for laundry. They also sometimes walk to a nearby gas station to fetch drinking water given to them for free. Many of them have families back home who they are not always able to contact due to phone services being cut off in Syria.
“What we’re being offered is not enough,” said Nawal Jaber before she broke into tears. “I have four children. How can we live off the vouchers?”
Jaber was one of the very few parents who were initially able to send their children to school, but three months into the scholastic year, she and her husband had to pull them out.
“We just couldn’t afford the tuition or the transportation,” she said. The children in the settlement now spend their days with each other, playing games and reminiscing about their hometown. One, a girl called Maram, said she wished she could be back home, as the children surrounding her nodded their heads in agreement.
UNHCR Assistant Liaison Officer Alain Ghafari said the refugee agency was now working on plans to build a school nearby that would not require transportation so that children can resume their studies, but that it would not be ready until early next year.
The delegation next visited the town of Baysour, Aley, where they have been partnering up since March to provide refugees and Lebanese host communities with free education.
“We are providing accelerated classes for Syrian and Lebanese children, as well as paying for their books, paying teachers’ salaries, providing air conditioners, as well as clean health facilities,” said European Union relief official Simon Bojsen-Moller.
With the help of nonprofit organization Terre Des Hommes, which provide the programs and classes, Baysour Public School hosts 393 students from the ages of 5-13, most of whom are Syrian refugees. The school provides remedial classes three times a week for students previously unregistered in Lebanese public schools.
Eichhorst met with Baysour Mayor Walid Aridi and municipal officials from the area to discuss the rapidly rising needs – Baysour alone has some 6,000 Syrian refugees.
Kelley also promised the residents of Baysour that the agency would study how to best help both refugees and Lebanese host communities.
“No other country in the world can do what Lebanon has,” Kelley said, highlighting the generosity of many Lebanese hosts. “With that, you have the full backing of the European Union. I hope one day I measure up to the standards the Lebanese have set.”
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http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Politics/2013/Jun-21/221091-eu-un-officials-promise-more-help.ashx#ixzz2X8F0R3n2(The Daily Star: Lebanon News:
http://www.dailystar.com.lb)
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