Help Save Children in Lebanon

With nearly 5,000 years of history, Lebanon is one of the world’s oldest countries. Traditionally an important commercial hub, Lebanon has also been at the center of many Middle Eastern conflicts.

As violence has consumed neighboring Syria in recent years, desperate people have fled their homes, with over 1 million currently living in Lebanon. Now, one in four people in Lebanon is a Syrian refugee – making the country host to the largest per capita population of refugees in the world, half of whom are children.

Today, one year after a deadly explosion rocked Beirut, families have been plunged deeper into poverty. Lebanon’s economic crisis, which started in 2019, has continued to wreak havoc on the country’s economy. The Lebanese pound has lost more than 90% of its value in less than 2 years. Children as young as five are being forced into labor, exposed to abuse and violence. The economic and social crisis, combined with the impacts of COVID-19, has resulted in an education crisis as well, with many children in Lebanon at risk of never returning to school. 

Help A Child In Lebanon

Your support will help us provide lifesaving assistance such as food, water, cash transfers, and safe places for children as people flee the conflict amid freezing temperatures and brutal conditions In Lebanon. Thank you!

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Donation Total: $10.00

Challenges for Children in Lebanon

The collapsing Lebanese economy has left families struggling to afford the basic food, electricity and water needed to survive.

  • More than one million children, both Lebanese and refugees, are in need of aid
  • 99% of Lebanese refugees are missing one meal a day
  • 30% of children are not receiving the primary health care they need
  • 15% of families stopped their children’s education
  • One in ten children has been sent to work

Our Results for Children in Lebanon

Thanks to you, we’ve ramped up our decades-long response in Lebanon to help realize the rights and meet the needs of the most vulnerable Lebanese and refugee children, reaching over 85,000 children in Lebanon last year.

Thanks to you, we’re working to ensure children in Lebanon like Siraj,* age 13, can stay in school, instead of dropping out to do hazardous, backbreaking labor to support his family. *Name changed for child’s protection.

  • 39,000 children healthy and nourished
  • 22,000 children educated and empowered
  • 8,000 children protected from harm
  • 19,000 children lifted from poverty
  • 81,000 children aided in crisis

Our Work for Children in Lebanon

One of the world’s leading charity for children, Help A Child Today has been on the ground in Lebanon responding to children’s needs, every day and in times of crisis, since 1986.

We work to ensure Lebanon’s children can realize their rights, raise their voices and access the services they need to meet their basic needs – including education, protection, shelter, food security, livelihood opportunities and health care.

We have dramatically scaled up our work in response to the Syrian refugee crisis. Together with partners, including community groups, government ministries and the international community, we’re working and advocating to give children in refugee and host communities alike the chance to grow up healthy, educated and safe.

Today, education is a central part of Help A Child’s work in Lebanon. Our goal is to increase access to quality, inclusive and safe education for the most vulnerable girls and boys. This includes early childhood care and development, basic literacy and numeracy and remedial support. We also prioritize child protection, especially for the most vulnerable. We promote gender equality throughout all of our programs.

Here are some recent examples of our work:

A healthy start in life

  • We’re implementing water, sanitation and hygiene initiatives throughout Lebanon, including rehabilitating schools, factories and old buildings
  • In response to an alarming rate of fire outbreaks in vulnerable communities, we led the development of national prevention, preparedness and response guidelines, including a training platform and distribution of supplies
  • We constructed reservoirs and implemented other water, sanitation and hygiene initiatives

The opportunity to learn

  • We’re reaching tens of thousands of children through non-formal education across Lebanon, with a focus on engaging parents and the community in children’s education and protection
  • We’re strengthening access to quality early learning by providing basic literacy and numeracy education, as well as homework and social emotional support, with significant results
  • We’re rehabilitating schools and providing essential supplies
  • We’re implementing a mobile library program in impoverished refugee settlements near the Syrian border, bringing books and play materials to nourish young minds, providing social and emotional care, as well as access to health, education, protection and livelihoods assistance
  • We help Lebanon’s youth build their skills, find jobs and become more financially secure

Protection from harm

  • We’re working to protect Lebanon’s children from psychological stress, neglect, violence, abuse and harmful coping tactics, such as child labor and child marriage, with significant results
  • We prioritize the needs of the most vulnerable children, including adolescent girls, children with disabilities, children separated from family, and those engaged in child labor
  • We’re helping families upgrade substandard shelters to deal with extreme weather conditions

Emergency response

  • World leader in helping children in crisis recover and return to learning, we’re implementing our Return to Learning initiative in Lebanese refugee communities to ensure no child’s education is interrupted by displacement

Given the unpredictability and rapidly changing circumstances on the ground during an emergency response, there is a chance that the level of funds raised exceeds what is needed to program, or where local conditions prevent program implementation. If this is the case, your funds will be allocated to our Children’s Emergency Fund, which will support Help A Childs’s work to provide immediate, life-saving humanitarian aid to those most in need.