THEY SAY THERE’S NOT PLACE LIKE HOME, BUT HOME IS NOT A PLACE
WITH FOUR WALLS, HOME IS A SENSE OF BELONGING AND WE
CAN BELONG TO ANYTHING, ANYWHERE, AT ANY GIVEN TIME
This slide will remain blank. That’s how we are all born, a blank state of mind. Tabularasa. Remember that when you feel burdened by a child refugee. BLANK
“This is the biggest humanitarian crisis that has taken place in recent history.”
• Today? nearly 9 million Syrians have been displaced by the fighting — 6.5 million within Syria, and about 2.4 million as refugees in neighboring countries.
• Refugee children are at risk of becoming ill, malnourished, abused, or exploited. Millions have been forced to quit school.
• The cold winter months are especially difficult for displaced children and families who lack adequate food, clothing, shelter, and sources of heat.
• Refugees lack adequate shelter, clean water, food, and hygiene items.
• Most left their homes on short notice after facing shootings, bombings, and artillery fire. Often they arrive in the country of refuge with little more than the clothes they are wearing.
SYMPATHY WITHOUT REACTION IS GONE TO WASTE. REMEMBER TO REACT.
• Social media outlets: (facebook, instagram, twitter)• Marketing campaign: We had over 40 000 invites onto
our event page – updates and posts about the crisis, slogans, shocking facts, death poles, children’s suffering from the cold, videos, appeals by famous UN ambassadors etc
• Timing: Winter was just around the corner and Alexa was on the way so we had to use that to our advantage.
• Guilt: “I am not a tourist” in my own country. Indeed, I had to use this strategy to make people feel involved and more so responsible for being bystanders to a crisis in their own country.
• Global outreach: People didn’t want to be tourists even outside Lebanon! (diaspora & different nationalities felt so involved in the process)
• Media coverage: We never approached the media, the media came to us and that was the best strategy of all time. By not promoting it, they wondered why we didn’t reach out to them and so they came to us.
• Volunteers: This initiative was no longer mine, I delegated full trust to people I didn’t know, to speak in the name of “I am not a tourist” simply because I knew how much they felt with and for the refugees.
CIVIL SOCIETY? YES PLEASE
MEET ISSAM: THE SILENT HERO OF THE DAY
IN ANOTHER WORLD, THEY COULD HAVE BEEN BEST FRIENDS
THE “HUMAN CHAIN”
My faith in humanity was officially restored. I knew this
was not the end of it.
RESULTS( x50 ) DISTRIBUTION
OUR FINGER PRINTS DO NOT FADE AWAY,FROM THE LIVES
WE HAVE TOUCHED.
“THIS BAKE SALE ISN’T TO RAISE MONEY FOR A SCHOOL DANCE, WE DON’T REALLY NEED THAT”
THEY DECIDED THAT THEY DIDN’T WANT TO BE TOURISTS EITHER!
Smiling hearts .. From Switzerland with LOVE