IPA GOES TO LEBANON THE ACCESS TO PLAY

IPA GOES TO LEBANON

The Access to Play in Crisis project moves forward

In the summer of 2014, IPA President Theresa Casey and IPA Vice President Robyn Monro-Miller traveled to Lebanon at the invitation of the Beyond Association. The intention was to do some on-theground research for IPA’s Access to Play in Crisis project and further the understanding developed during the IPA Triennial Conference in Itanbul. This is a post from Theresa and Robyn, written while in Beirut, following a short visit to Zahle Province, Lebanon.

We have spent three wonderful days with our friends in the Beyond Association, at the invitation of Maria Assi, CEO. IPA has built a relationship with Maria and Beyond over the last four years. They were integral to the UN General Comment process right from the beginning when they ran a consultation in Beirut for our Global Consultation Project. Beyond Association is a Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) that is responding directly and very innovatively to the Syrian refugee crisis. They have established schools in the ‘informal tented settlements’ (ITS) where many of the Syrian refugees have been forced to set up home in Lebanon. These are often on the edge of agricultural land where they find work in the fields.

We have been greeted with exceptional openness, warmth and hospitality in what are very, very difficult circumstances. We focused mainly on visiting the schools and communities and had opportunities to witness the teachers working with the children with very engaging methods – very participatory and full of love. We’ve also been very impressed by an emphasis on a rich curriculum including music, art and storytel-ling. We’ve been told that many of the children need to be able to express themselves creatively and to tell their stories through drawing as they will not talk about the experiences they have been through. Beyond identifies teachers from within the Syrian refugee communities and also Lebanese teachers, who all work together as a team. Beyond gives ongoing training and coaching and promotes values of tolerance and respect in everything they do. Our purpose in making this visit was to see first-hand the situation of Syrian children and to understand better responses to their situation. Second, we hope that we can find ways to support Beyond and other NGOs and government bodies in their desire to highlight and implement children’s article 31 rights in situations of crisis. During our visit we had meetings organised by Beyond with the Director General of the Ministry of Youth and Sport and UNICEF Lebanon programme. We will continue to follow up on ideas and possible action that developed in the course of the visit. Some are very concrete such as the commitment of the the Director General to make a translation of the UN GC on article 31, others need further development. We feel this visit has been an important opportunity to follow up on both the resolutions from the Istanbul conference. On a personal level it has been deeply moving and inspiring. – Theresa and Robyn