Children and Youth Centre on Shatila Camp

For the past week I have been volunteering at the Children and Youth Centre on the Shatila refugee camp in Lebanon. The Shatila camp was created by Palestinian refugees fleeing the war in their country in 1948 and has become a permanent fixture in the South of Beirut now home to over 18,000 people. More recently, Syrian refugees have added to the ever increasing number of people living on camp in conditions that are not fit for any human beings. As always in these situations, those paying the highest price are the children born and raised on camp. Some families have been here for four generations and have very little hope of ever leaving the camp.

The Children and Youth Centre created in 1997 provides Syrian and Palestinian children on camp with an education, but also with a safe place where they can play, make friends and be children. The centre is committed to keeping children off the streets and improving their future by providing tuition but also organising activities such as yoga classes, gender awareness workshops and away days to the countryside. Here is their Facebook page if you are curious https://www.facebook.com/pg/cycshatila/about/?ref=... The people at the centre do an outstanding job, unfortunately their funds are very limited and have been shrinking in recent years. This has forced them to drastically reduce the size of the working team as well as the number of children they are able to care for. It has also impaired their ability to purchase new furniture and conduct much needed maintenance works in the centre. The roof of the centre is currently in dire need of repair and a group of architects who are volunteering here have offered to fix it. However, in order to do so, they need funds; they have estimated the total cost of the project to be £5000 and I would love to be able to help with their project even if just a little! If you are able to donate anything at all towards this project you'd be doing something genuinely awesome and contributing to the education and future of children who really need any help they can get. If you are not able to donate, I'd be very grateful if you could share this page so it reaches a larger audience!

Thank you very much for your help and please do get in touch with any questions :)

Mariane