Lebanon Emergency, assistance to share difficulties and joys

Zouk Mosbeh is a coastal city north of Beirut, Lebanon. It is in this city that Samar, Eliane, Jessica and Grace move, four women, four mothers, who work for the same insurance company. In Lebanon the crisis has hit the middle class of the country hard, unemployment has more than doubled, many private companies have closed, corruption is widespread. State infrastructure and services barely function, which leaves the Lebanese people without a health care plan. Medicines and many basic necessities are lacking. In a social context like this, work barely guarantees the bare minimum for living. The emergency intervention launched by AMU, in collaboration with Humanité Nouvelle Liban and the Apostolic Vicariate of Beirut, provides support and assistance for the most vulnerable families through the periodic distribution of boxes of food and hygiene products and psychological support for some families in difficulty . Samar is a beneficiary and at the same time a volunteer of the project. She was the first to talk about it in the office. Samar, Eliane, Jessica and Grace were managing the economic crisis until 2021. A stable job, family, savings, plans for the future. Then the circumstances changed, as Eliane, mother of two, recalls: “It’s the first time that the crisis has hit my family so hard. I was moved to receive this box (the food and hygiene products of the project, ed.). Usually people help you with small things, and not like this, these packages we are receiving are something so big!”. Jessica adds her reflection on the meaning of “family” especially in difficult times: “Here in Lebanon the family stays together despite everything. They teach us to share everything with each other because that is how they survived all the big crises in Lebanon.” Even among work colleagues there is family: “At first it was our boss who brought us closer, then we discovered that Samar was behind all this. What makes this workplace different from others is that it puts humans first, we are not just means of production”. The solidarity experienced by these women goes beyond the walls of the office, invades their private lives and becomes a desire for reciprocity: “These boxes, this food, prove that there are still people willing to take care of others. And this to me is one of the noblest qualities of human beings; every act of kindness you do, in some way will be returned to you”.
Anche Grace è d’accordo: “Stiamo tutti, senza eccezioni, attraversando momenti difficili. Ma Dio non ci abbandona. Stiamo facendo tutto il possibile perché ai nostri figli non manchi nulla. Mio marito era titubante sul fatto di ricevere questi pacchi, ma penso che in fondo non riusciva a credere come fossimo arrivati a questo punto. È difficile da accettare. Ma questo aiuto ci rende felici. Nei pacchi ci sono cibi preziosi, e quando è possibile li mettiamo a disposizione anche degli altri inquilini del nostro palazzo, è il nostro modo di ricambiare”.
La prima volta che un pacco del progetto sostenuto dall’AMU è arrivato in casa di Eliane, la cioccolata è stata la felicità dei suoi figli, Eliane stessa ha urlato per la gioia.
Ed è con quest’ultima parola – gioia – che Jessica termina le sue riflessioni: “Sono convinta che l’intenzione che c’è dietro la distribuzione di queste scatole non sia solo quella di soddisfare i bisogni primari, ma molto di più: restituire alle persone un po’ di quella gioia andata persa a causa della crisi”.