The Project in Lebanon
The Project in Lebanon
Project Overview
Partnership with Basmeh & Zeitooneh (B&Z), a Lebanese NGO supporting Syrian and host-community children, Network for Social Change, and the Social Impact Lab at the University of Southampton.
Objective:
Reduce operational costs of learning centres during Lebanon’s economic crisis through renewable-energy adoption, and use these saving to increase the number of students receiving their education in these centres.
Methodological Logic:
We began by analysing Lebanon’s socio-economic and political reality: mass displacement from Syria, economic collapse, and a failing electricity grid.
Our entry point—“how can education for vulnerable children remain viable?”—guided a multi-layered, mixed-methods inquiry.
Methodological Steps:
- Contextual analysis of national data and education reports to define the structural problem.
- Participatory diagnosis with Basmeh & Zeitooneh (B&Z) through focus groups and staff interviews, linking power shortages to rising operational costs.
- Comparative learning from partners who had piloted solar solutions in B&Z northern centres.
- Simulation and cost modelling to test feasibility at Bar Elias.
- Narrative documentation: a short documentary filmed in Beirut and the Beqaa Valley, turning technical findings into a story that mobilised solidarity and funding.
- Reflexive practice: continuous dialogue with B&Z to ensure the intervention emerged from local priorities, not external assumptions.
Results:
- 50 % decrease in electricity expenses → resources reallocated to maintain enrollment and expand access.
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FeedBack
Project Photographer
Living in a country where education, housing, and access to a healthcare are seen as ordinary parts of life can sometimes make us forget that, for many, these are luxuries beyond reach. This experience opened my eyes to how incredibly privileged and fortunate some of us are, and reminded me that privilege carries responsibility. Not everyone has the means to help others, but those who do must. Because in the end, we all share the same sky and the same hopes. It is our shared duty to ease the burdens of those who were not born into the same opportunities, and to use what we have to make the world a gentler, more compassionate place.
In Lebanon, my role was to capture and share the stories of a reality that many will never experience, and together with the rest of my team, we created a short documentary. This experience taught me the importance of using our voices to shed light where it’s mostly needed. And above all, it reminded me that no act of compassion is ever too small, so we must each do our part, always.
