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.

50 % decrease in electricity expenses → resources reallocated to maintain enrollment and expand access.