‘By providing minimum shelter, it at least gives them a safe place’

"I've been working with Concern for the majority of my life," says Brid Kennedy, regional director of Middle East at Concern Worldwide. "I started out during the Ethiopian famine in 1984 and since then I have dealt with all sorts of crises in the course of my work here. I have worked in areas dealing with other famines, conflicts, and floods and earthquakes. These are all events that lead to humanitarian disasters. Since 2013 I've been supporting Concern's Syria response crisis – which has all been predominantly conflict-related."

Concern Worldwide reached 11 million people through emergency support programmes across the globe in 2018. The organisation has had a team based in the north of Lebanon since 2013 to help deal with a massive influx of refugees from Syria.

“Just to give you a better idea, Lebanon is only about the size of counties Cork and Kerry together,” says Kennedy. “So it is a very small country with a population of around 4 million people. Since the war began in Syria in 2011, it is estimated that around 1.5 million Syrians have fled into Lebanon, and obviously that has swelled the population considerably.”

We work with the poorest and most vulnerable of these families, providing materials and helping with construction

“The government of Lebanon doesn’t allow any campsites for refugees, so they live really wherever they can,” she says. “They are living in what are called ‘informal tented settlements’, and basically that means that they are dependent on the goodwill of a Lebanese family to give them permission to use a corner of land where they can put up a makeshift shelter and live there. The government of Lebanon allow a maximum of 20 families to stay on someone’s land in this way.”

The majority of Concern’s work in the region involves providing building materials to help refugees construct more robust shelters, as building materials are very difficult to access.

“The families living in this way are allowed access to healthcare and education, though they are restricted when it comes to getting jobs,” explains Kennedy. “So we work with the poorest and most vulnerable of these families, providing materials and helping with construction when needed.

“And remember, these refugees’ families are spread out, not in a central location, so identifying who needs support and getting to them can be part of the problem.”

Another major problem is the cold and stormy weather that hits the camps through the winter months, often destroying the makeshift shelters.

“It varies a lot there. In the summer the temperatures can be over 40 degrees,” she explains, “and in the winter there is a lot of rain and flooding, and temperatures can get to below freezing.

“Because we know that the winter weather is going to get worse over the next two months, we are now preparing to distribute shelter kits. These are materials like wooden beams, plywood and tarpaulin to help reinforce the shelters because with the rains come the winds as well,” says Kennedy.

“If the shelters are not reinforced it is not uncommon for the wind to get in under a tent, and it can lift the whole structure. As well as reinforcing existing shelters, we will also be distributing about 8,000 tents to different families, along with mattresses and thermal blankets for people who need them.

That shelter offers a bit of comfort and dignity to people like Ayda, who have gone through so much

“To give you a specific example, there is one individual we have helped called Ayda, she is 57, and she is a mother and a grandmother, and she fled Syria several years ago after her family was directly impacted by the war. She lost a son, and her husband in bombing, and later on another son died as well, and her youngest son has been missing for several years.

“There are so many people like that living as refugees in Lebanon, who have lost immediate family through the conflict,” she says. “For the people like Ayda that have survived, many of them are living with little hope as to what their future is going to be. By providing minimum shelter, it at least gives them a safe place. It is life-saving and it means that they can live with less fear through the winter months. That shelter offers a bit of comfort and dignity to people like Ayda, who have gone through so much, and also it gives a little hope and solidarity, knowing that other people care for them and that they are not abandoned.”