Life changing experience

From this week's Kerryman newspaper.

KERRYMAN COLUMNIST VISITS REFUGEE CAMP

FROM WEST KERRY TO THE SYRIAN BORDER, KERRYMAN COLUMNIST AND CONCERN PRESS OFFICER MICHAEL COMMANE VISITED A REFUGEE CAMP LAST WEEK AND LABELLED IT A LIFE CHANGING EXPERIENCE

• The Kerryman (North Kerry)
• 16 Sep 2015

Michael Commane at a school in Talhayat, which is supported by Concern.

LAST week I was in Halba in northern Lebanon where Concern Worldwide is based. Concern employs close to 90 people in the city, including two Irish engineers, Cork man Patrick O’Halloran from Templemartin and Charlie Donnelly from Rathgar in Dublin. Pat has been in Lebanon with Concern since April of last year and Charlie is ‘ brand new’ as he only arrived last week.

It’s only when you visit a place like this and see with your own eyes what’s going on that one can appreciate the work that is being done.

Last Thursday I visited a UNHCR settlement in Bebnine, which is approximately a 30 minute-drive from the Concern office in Halba.

Syrian refugees are here since 2013 living under plastic sheeting. Originally there were no toilets. Patrick O’Halloran explains that Concern has now installed toilets, water and waste water systems.

There are four families or 30 people to each tent.

This week Concern is beginning a project to enlarge a culvert in a nearby stream so that there will be a better flow of water.

The day I was there Concern was discussing the matter with an official from the local municipality.

Concern is also involved in cleaning river beds.

I called to one of the tents where I met Abdullah and his family. They have all fled from Homs in Syria and are here in Bebnine two years.

There was a number of young children in the tent, none of them attending school. Their mother had been killed in a bombing raid in Syria.

Before fleeing Syria they were moving from city to city.

Later that same day I visited a makeshift school near Bebnine in Talhayat. Here Concern is supporting Unicef.

The education manager, Farah El Omar, explains how Concern is organising training for teachers.

They are teaching children in two groups, four to sevenyear-olds and eight to 14-yearolds.

It was great to be back in a classroom and the smiles on the children’s facing made the journey all so worthwhile. Fortunately the children are able to smile. They are not fully aware of what is going on. 

But it is a different story with the adults.

Abdullah explains how difficult life is.

They have to pay $50 a month for the UNHCRtent and they are finding it next to impossible to manage. The UNHCR rents land from local farmers and that’s why the refugees have to pay the monthly rent.

Abdullah’s elderly mother had earlier been living in a garage but the owner raised the rent so she had to leave.

Concern is doing its damnedest to make life better and more pleasant for these people, who have fled, scared of their lives, from Syria. Every person with whom I spoke knew the exact day they left their home in Syria. It was always the day their home was bombed from the sky.

Any chance the world powers could be made bang heads together and stop the fighting?