In the Middle East region and in the issues of refugees and asylum seekers, Anna Hruboňová had already focused during her studies. Through development volunteering in Lebanon, she was given the opportunity to look at these topics from a different, more personal perspective. For six months (up to the start of the corona crisis) she worked on a project of the host organization ADRA Libanon, focused on work with Syrian communities in Beirut. Her stay was nevertheless marked from the start by several critical situations and challenges. Despite that, she would still like to return to fieldwork.

Libanon je malá, no krásna a pohostinná krajina

Anna Hruboňová completed her studies in international relations at Karlovej univerzite last year, and this drew her toward fieldwork—further from theoretical analysis of global issues and closer to those directly suffering the consequences of them. In the autumn, she therefore left via ADRA Slovensko, and with the support of SlovakAid, to Lebanon, where she had, as a development volunteer, responsibility for an education center for Syrian children. During her six-month stay she faced many challenges, including the onset of the corona crisis.

Lebanon has a significant presence of humanitarian and development organizations, but given the high number of refugees and asylum seekers there and a failing state, their work is genuinely necessary. NGOs meet monthly within the sectors where they are active, and such meetings are usually coordinated by UN agencies, but also by some ministries. ADRA, for example, takes part in meetings organized by UNICEF and UNHCR.

At ADRA Libanon, Anna was meant to be a support force in an educational project for children of Syrian refugees and asylum seekers. “My planned tasks were mainly to help with psychosocial and leisure activities for the children, to practice French with them, but also to write reports on our activities. Shortly after my arrival, however, the project ran into financial problems and began to operate in a reduced mode,” explains the Slovak volunteer and the first critical situation.

In the end, she worked directly with children only one day a week and began to be engaged more directly in the ADRA Libanon office. She helped the program coordinator write project proposals for calls by various donors so the educational center could fully resume functioning. She also became involved in writing projects in the field of safe water and sanitation, in which ADRA is active—especially in the Bekaa Valley in eastern Lebanon.

“We also prepared a professional course for young people from poorer backgrounds, who had trouble finding work or paying for university studies. I did not see the implementation of this project, however, because I returned home early,” Anna remembers. Lebanon went through a very turbulent period throughout her six-month stay.

Life in Poverty Worsens the Education of Syrian Children

Within the projects Anna worked on, she mainly worked with Syrian refugees and asylum seekers, especially small children. “You can literally reach Syria from Lebanon over the hills, and that is why approximately 1.5 million Syrian refugees and asylum seekers live in this neighboring state. Given the size of the original population, that is an enormous number,” Anna clarifies.

Besides intercultural sensitivity, empathy, and assertiveness, it was also important for her to know the regional context well. According to Anna, it is also necessary to visit the families of clients at home as well so that one can understand their living conditions.

The ADRA organization is known in the area for its educational center, helping primarily children who lag behind at school and have a hard time integrating into the educational system. “For Syrian children this is a common problem, because because of the war and life in exile they were without education for a long time, they skipped several grades, and lost study habits. Living in poverty makes this situation even worse,” explains Anna Hruboňová. “In our center, the children had a safe and pleasant learning environment, and despite the traumas they had experienced related to war and fleeing their homeland, they were still able (like other children) to enjoy small things. But what these children have already gone through in such a short life will remain with me forever,” adds the Slovak volunteer.

Unexpected Situations at Every Step

A few weeks after Anna’s arrival in Lebanon, long-standing public dissatisfaction escalated into mass demonstrations. People were dissatisfied with long-term corruption and poor governance in the government. “In October last year, one morning I woke up and found crowds of protestors in the streets who blocked roads by burning tires—not only in Beirut but across the whole country. During the first days we were all terrified, because these scenes (especially given Lebanon’s bloody civil war past) looked very frightening. It soon became clear that the revolution would have a mass but peaceful character,” Anna recalls about the revolution.

Road blockades in Beirut continued for more than a month and the country was paralyzed. Many people could not even get to work. On the strongest day of the revolution, more than a million people took part in the protests, which is a truly high number for a country with six million inhabitants.

At that time, Anna’s working routine changed and her daily routine was reduced. “For about two months I functioned on a route: home – work – supermarket – home. It was like quarantine training for me, which I am again experiencing during the coronavirus pandemic,” the young Slovak woman explains. Her stay was in fact ended early due to the onset of the pandemic in March. Schools, and therefore educational centers, were closed in Lebanon immediately after the first infection cases appeared.

The Dramatic Situation in Tent Settlements Without Water

The ADRA Lebanon team tried to undergo some transformation, but all educational activities were interrupted. “Syrian children were, once again, left without an education process, and no one knows for how long. In addition to fear of infection and depression from social isolation, covid-19 also brings serious socio-economic consequences that will again hit the most vulnerable hardest. Many Syrian families depend on occasional work, and with mandatory quarantine, i.e. self-isolation, they have now lost an important source of income,” clarifies Anna Hruboňová.

Before the pandemic, Lebanon had already been in a serious economic crisis, and covid-19 deepened it further. Food prices rose dramatically, while many people lost their jobs. The situation of Syrian refugees and asylum seekers worsened even more, and many of Lebanon’s original residents also fell below the poverty line. The country faces a real risk of famine.

According to Anna, the biggest problem is that in overcrowded refugee community conditions, adequate social isolation and safe distancing are not possible. The situation is dramatic for refugees and asylum seekers who live in tent settlements and therefore do not even have access to running water.

Remembering How to Handle Critical Situations

What most encourages Anna for the future is the stress-management skill she has gained and her memory of handling all those critical situations during the stay—from repositioning in the team (because of financial difficulties in the educational project), through the revolution in Beirut’s streets, to the difficult departure home. “When stresses appear in work or personal life, I will remind myself that I have already gotten through worse moments—precisely in Lebanon,” the young Slovak woman emphasizes.

Professionally, she fulfilled her desire to get a firsthand look at humanitarian work. She learned how NGOs actually function abroad, and how projects are prepared and adapted. The whole stay awakened in her a curiosity to explore this work more deeply. She is open to the idea of traveling again in this way once the global pandemic calms down a bit.

Anna recommends development volunteering to everyone who loves challenges and is genuinely interested in the field of humanitarian aid and development cooperation. “One should, however, be prepared for unexpected situations (different from those at home), and take possible inconveniences as part of learning and personal growth,” she adds.

Racism Is Often Brought Into the Migration Debate

Anna also noticed that many people (not only in Slovakia) use the word migrant as an insult. Yet she herself is also a migrant because of her volunteering in Lebanon. “A migrant is in fact a person who moves, relocates to find better living conditions. Easterners in Bratislava and Slovaks in Prague are also migrants. A significant amount of racism is often brought into migration debate: when Africans come to Europe, they are ‘bad migrants’; when Europeans come to live in Africa, they are ‘cool expatriates,’” the Slovak volunteer points out.

In Lebanon it works similarly; there too, foreigners and women and men from abroad are divided into three categories. “The first are ‘refugees,’ fleeing the war in Syria; the second are ‘migrants,’ who came to Lebanon hoping for better earnings from poorer countries; the third are ‘expats.’ That’s us (Europeans and Americans), who also came for work, but no one will call us migrants as an insult,” explains the graduate of international relations.

According to Anna, the greatest challenge of the campaign ‘Tváre migrácie’ by the Platform of development organizations Ambrela will be “to convince people with strong anti-immigration attitudes, who are deeply convinced of their truth. Arguments based on facts, in contrast, are refused.” According to her, the reason for such attitudes is that reform of our educational system is proceeding only very slowly. “There is a lack of deeper emphasis on critical thinking, working with information, and media literacy. For that reason, I am glad that a few NGOs function in Slovakia (such as Ambrela with its members), which in schools work on global education and are changing the situation for the better,” she adds gratefully at the end.

Text: Boba Markovič Baluchová, Foto: ADRA Libanon a Anna Hruboňová This article was produced as part of the ‘SDGs and Migration – Multipliers and Journalists Addressing Decision Makers and Citizens in the EU’ project, funded by the European Union programme for education and awareness-raising (DEAR). Ambrela bears exclusive responsibility for the article’s content, and it does not necessarily reflect the opinions of the EU.