Achieving more together

Since 2020, Lebanon has been hit by one disaster after another: people were in shock after the explosion in Beirut in 2020. Since 7 October 2023, many things have come to a standstill: tourism, gastronomy: no tourists, no income.

This project is not about food donations,
it is about helping people to help themselves.

It is about financing fair work, fair entrepreneurship, fair projects, education & sustainability in Lebanon, so that Lebanese people and families can create an economic basis for their lives in Lebanon.

It is also about submitting project applications and bringing these projects to life.

Lebanon is located between Syria & Israel/Palestine and the Mediterranean Sea between 2 of the most powerful conflict regions of the 21st century. It has received many displaced people since the 19th century: Armenians, Kurds, Palestinians, Iraqis, Syrians, Palestinians from Syria /2 and3. expulsion). These factors characterise the country's society and problems.

Switzerland in the Middle East experienced a brief period of prosperity after independence, which was interrupted by the civil war until 1990.  The reason for this was the parliamentary democracy introduced by the
 This seems to be the root of Lebanon's destabilising problem and is increasingly hampering Lebanon's further development.

Around 5 million people live in Lebanon. Due to the unrest, the civil war and the unstable situation, many people have been and continue to be displaced abroad and have found a second home there. Estimates speak of around 16 million people.

As many of them did not leave Lebanon voluntarily, they dream of returning home and many are casting their dreams in concrete: 55% of all homes in Lebanon are empty.
The Mediterranean coast is now largely built up. 

Around 40 per cent of Lebanese are under the age of 24, 75 per cent of the population were dependent on support in 2020, and unemployment rates of up to 60 per cent are reported in different regions, for example in Tripoli.

The potential of the Holy Land lies in the young generation of Lebanon and in the Lebanese abroad, because Jesus once preached in Lebanon, performed his first miracles in Qana and received his transfiguration on Jabal al Sheikh.

Jesus is the unifying element of the great religions, as he is also the prophet of the Muslims.

The greatest potential lies within ourselves: in the Lebanese:

Many Lebanese living abroad regularly support their families. But they need support that has a lasting effect by creating a regular income. Because work, one of the greatest Lebanese; Khalil Gibran once defined work in his own way, is a right to life. If this is not the case, people experience a kind of burnout, which is called boreout in Western culture. 

  The lack of goals and prospects in life leads to disinterest and frustration and in the long term causes apathy and concentration problems as well as depression, from which many people are unable to free themselves without outside help.

These conditions are not recognised from the outside as illnesses of the soul and mind. In combination with the inherited or self-experienced war traumas, the euphoria of 2019 with the collapse in the corona pandemic and the detonation in Beirut in 2020 and the current expulsion from southern Lebanon after 7 October 2023 can lead to a state of shock, to a kind of freeze of the psyche.

Lebanon finds itself in this state of shock, a kind of helplessness of the Lebanese soul.

What can the solution look like?

It needs prospects: Work, self-generated income or business oriented towards the common good.
It needs sustainability and an economy that serves people, Lebanon and nature and not the other way round.

How to start: with the first step: creating jobs and education.

Due to the situation described above, strategic applications are difficult, but not impossible. However, these require 1-2 years' lead time and reliable co-operation partners in Lebanon. Entrepreneur, graduate economist and education manager Grit Hallal is already working with the UVBB, the Berlin-Brandenburg Airport Business Initiative and LernSINN erlebBAR e.V. on several fact-finding trips to find solutions that should lead to economic and climate co-operation.

But the simple and quick solution that can be implemented quickly is joint fundraising:

There are over 16 million people of Lebanese descent worldwide. If every third person contributes just €60 a year, that's €320,000,000 a year. With this, we can rebuild Lebanon ourselves and lead it out of the economic crisis. 

A Palestinian doctor from Leipzig and beirut who was a friend of Grit Hallal responded to this idea in 2022: "But Grit the billionaires....! she replied: "Then we are the billionaires."
 

Many people can achieve a lot with very little. Let's get started.

If we don't start, we can't start: with the 1,000 sponsoring members we can reach €60,000 in project funding and we can finance 12 micro-projects or 13 people's work providing work for others.

Let's get started: The year 2024 is still young.