We had a pretty sobering experience yesterday as we were invited to visit two of the predominantly Palestinian refugee camps in Beirut. We spent the day with members of Beit aftal Assumoud (BAS), a predominantly Palestinian NGO that provides social care and vocational training throughout the 15 refugee camps spread across the country.
The people we met were incredibly friendly, and seemed eager to share with us their stories, and it made it even tougher to realize that other than listening and observing, we had so little to offer.
The camps were formed in the late 1940s with the influx of Palestinian refugees into Lebanon and have been in existence since then. Through their history, they have been the sites of numerous massacres, and frequent violence. One of the teachers we met told us that her house has been destroyed seven times since the 1970s. Each of the two camps we visited was originally built for hundreds, but now houses over 15000 refugees in approximately one square kilometer. The buildings grow vertically with floors added in a hodge-podge of building every few years. Six story buildings are separated by alleys less than one arms length wide. There is no drinking water available, and the electrical system is a tangled web of open wires hanging over every street. There are no open spaces for kids to play or groups to gather.
The physical squalor of the camps is matched by the emotional and psychological struggles of the people we met. The refugees have few possibilities for advancement. They are not allowed to own property or start businesses outside of the camps. There are 70 professions in which they are not permitted to participate--nearly every educated profession is off-limits. We asked one of the social workers at BAS what happens to young people after finishing schooling, and he said that he couldn't really even discuss this because it makes him so upset.
We visited the BAS centers in each camp, both with small clinics on the ground floor and three pre-school classes on the upper floors. The organization spearheads vocational training and adolescent health education, which they found to be lacking at the UN clinics. In spite of their limited resources, the group has put together an impressive collection of pamphlets and literature, including a survey of teens' knowledge and attitudes towards family planning, reproductive health, emotional health, and self-confidence. One center had a recently opened adolescent reproductive health clinic that was staffed three days a week with a female gynecologist, urologist and psychologist, offering free routine medical care or even the opportunity to come just to ask questions. There was a tiny stock of medicines including oral contraceptives and antibiotics. Patients entered through an unmarked back door to remove the stigma of going to a sexual health clinic.
Social workers organized outreach programs into the communities for family guidance, cultural activities, and health education. Many of the teachers and social workers lived in the camps themselves and we heard repeatedly that their mission was, against all odds, to try and give hope to the young people.
Removed from their native lands, living without many rights, and labeled as terrorists by much of the world, the line between frustration and hostility seems delicate. As we were driving, we passed posters on the building walls put up by the families of two men who wished to remember their deaths and commemorate them as martyrs towards the Palestinian cause. One of the more shocking things we saw was a poster in one of the common rooms of the BAS schools that was apparently made by the students. It had a map of Gaza with bombs drawn in directed towards it from every direction. On each of the bombs was pasted on a logo of a US company cut out from newspapers.
As we left, the one of the organization's administrators said to us that no one is born a terrorist, but that out of the horrors of this place grows terrorism. It was amazing that out of all this could come an organization that is doing so much to combat the realities faced by the refugees.
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