Case Study February 2014 Lebanon Country Programme

“My younger sister is developing respiratory problems as a result of the damp humid house we are living in. It’s not habitable and the smell is awful. It makes me so upset that we have to live

like this.”

 

                                                         Aisha  (15)  holding  her  messages  to  world  leaders  calling  for  peace  and  a  better  environment.    Picture  Rakan  Diab  /  Save  the  Children    

Aisha and her family arrived in Lebanon a year ago and are living in a small mountainous town in Akkar, North Lebanon. She has 3 brothers and one sister and is the oldest of her siblings. She attends a CFS run by Save the Children, but is currently not going to school, which frustrates her hugely as she used to be an excellent student and feels frustrated that she is losing out on her education. She is finding life in Lebanon difficult to adjust to and misses her old life in Syria terribly. In the above picture, Aisha holds her messages for world leaders, explaining what she thinks their priorities should be to improve her environment, which are: 1. I want peace to reign in my country, and for you to find a solution to the Syria crisis. 2. I want all of you to preserve mutual understanding and harmony, so that you can make important decisions

for the Arab world. 3. It is our right to live in a safe environment, where children can live safely and be protected from danger. 4. As children, we have the right to play in safe playgrounds. 5. A sound mind in a healthy body. We ask you to please preserve the water supplies. Aisha’s story in her own words I am struggling to be happy here in Lebanon. The house we live in here is very dark and we get no natural sunlight so it’s always humid and dark and really uncomfortable. All my surroundings are so different to what they were back home. In Syria, I used to love spending time outside, and had places to go and play outside. On my street, there were public gardens and I used to go there and sit with my friends and hang out. Here, I hardly go outside, and don’t feel at home here at all. If it wasn’t for this CFS and the lovely facilitators I would feel so alone and unhappy. This is the only space I can come to and feel part of something, and the facilitators are wonderful and really supportive. I went to school last year here but was told that this year the class was full. This really frustrates me as I have missed out on so much of my education and I used to be a really good student. I used to speak a bit of English too but now that’s all gone.

When I think of the changes that have been happening in my environment, I think back to being able to drink water from the tap in Syria. Here, you can’t do that and we have to buy water. Sometimes, we can’t afford to and drink from the tap anyway even though we know the water isn’t safe to drink. I think the authorities should treat the water here to make it safe to drink so that people aren’t forced to buy it. My younger sister is developing respiratory problems as a result of the damp humid house we are living in. It’s not habitable and the smell is awful. It makes me so upset that we have to live like this. The lack of rain this winter will mean we face a drought here. It’s a big problem and we already have to buy water, so I am worried about what will happen in the coming months. Life is difficult enough here, so I am really worried about the impact this will have on all of us. If I could do anything and have superhuman powers for a day I would ensure that all wars are banned and that I put an end to all the wars going on around the world. I would ensure we immediately stop cutting down any more trees and would work to fix the ozone layer which is growing year on year and increasing the UV we are all exposed to. When I think to the future and the sort of environment I want to live in, I want to be surrounded by green spaces. I want to be able to breathe in clean air and have clean water. I want all children to be in school and most importantly of all, I want there to be peace. In order to better protect the planet, I want to share the following message with world leaders: “I want every world leader to make peace with their neighbour and to enforce this peace around the world, to ensure no-one is forced to leave their home and to end all this destruction.” Context and background Aisha spoke to the SC Lebanon communications team as part of an advocacy session being held in the CFS she attends in Akkar, Northern Lebanon. The session is part of a regional advocacy project looking to ensure children’s participation and voices are heard in the run up to the MENA Regional Platforms on DRR and CCA in March and May 2014 which will discuss what happens after the MDG and Hyogo Framework targets expire in 2015. Given the context in Lebanon and the upheaval faced by Syrian children fleeing the conflict, discussions about environment and disasters faced invariably come back to the experiences and challenges they are facing as a result of the Syrian conflict. For almost three years the conflict in Syria has devastated the lives of millions of Syrians and impacted significantly on neighbouring countries. There are an estimated 9.3million people inside Syria in need of assistance and 2.3 million people have fled to neighbouring countries. Since the start of the crisis more than a million Syrian refugees have fled to Lebanon, a tiny country with a population of just over 4 million. As the numbers of refugees in Lebanon continues to increase, the demand on public services like education, health, water, housing, electricity and sewage has reached an unsustainable level. Having escaped the conflict, the reality of life in Lebanon for many refugees is often fraught with difficulty and uncertainty. Many have used up any savings and assets they once had in the first months and years of the crisis, many families are now struggling to cope, faced with massive job scarcity and no other means for support. The rental market is now saturated, prices have skyrocketed and most families cannot afford to rent even the most basic accommodation. Increasingly they are looking for makeshift shelter in informal settlements and unfinished buildings, which are now home to more than 250,000 refugees across Lebanon. Conditions in informal settlements are abysmal and provide little protection from the damp and the cold. Most of the settlements lack even the most basic water and sanitation services. Many families have seen themselves fall into significant debt as they try to feed their families. Save the Children has undergone a massive scale up to respond to the needs of the most vulnerable refugees, delivering an integrated response and providing more than 200,000 beneficiaries with shelter, education, child protection, FSL and health services. Interview carried out by Olivia Maehler on February 19th 2014