LEBANON: Local Palestin NGO converts rooftops into playgrounds for the children of the Shatila refugee camp

Record ID: 345849

  • Title: LEBANON: Local Palestin NGO converts rooftops into playgrounds for the children of the Shatila refugee camp
  • Date: 12th March 2009
  • Summary: SHATILA REFUGEE CAMP, BEIRUT, LEBANON (MARCH 10, 2009) (REUTERS) WIDE OF STREET AND VEHICLES IN SHATILA PALESTINIAN REFUGEE CAMP IN BEIRUT
  • Embargoed: 27th March 2009 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Lebanon
  • Country: Lebanon
  • Topics: Weather,Education
  • Reuters ID: LVA23273ZXHNHVM9SOH3W3RMVU5X
  • Story Text: A local Palestinian NGO is trying to raise money to convert the rooftops of its learning centres into playgrounds for children, to make up for the lack of open space in the overcrowded Shatila Camp in southern Beirut.
    Neither grass nor trees grow in the playground of the Najda Kindergarten in Beirut's Shatila Palestinian refugee camp.
    Instead, the 88 children of this tiny school have to walk up three flights of stairs in order play on the rooftop, half of which is covered with an old green mattress and the other half by puddles of water.
    Teachers say that during the winter the makeshift playground is full of water that collects in the ground due to a lack of proper drain pipes and bad infrastructure. In the summer, the zinc tiles shielding the roof make it impossible for children to bear the heat and humidity.
    But workers in the Najda Association, a social and educational NGO operating in Palestinian camps in Lebanon since 1967, are hoping to overcome the situation through innovative means.
    They are hoping to raise enough money to refurbish the roof space into a proper playground for children.
    The problem of finding space for children to play is not exclusive to the kindergarten. According to UNRWA, around 12,235 people live in an area that measures about one square kilometre wide.
    Najda's Vocational Training Centre, which helps illiterate youth and adults and holds a range of educational courses, is also lacking a proper recreational area for its students.
    Director of the Najda Association in Beirut, Wessal Jichi, says children need spaces in which to play.
    "We have an issue with the rooftop of the centre here, in the vocation centre in Shatila and also the roof of the kindergarten. This is very important, there are children who need to play," she said.
    "You know that in the camp, the streets are very narrow and there is no space for the children to play. Our camps need space for children to play, to move. This does not exist. We are deprived of it," added Jichi.
    There are twelve refugee camps scattered across Lebanon where some 400,000 Palestinians live. The camps are over-populated, underprivileged and many of them lack basics such as properly paved roads and sewage systems.
    Najda Association was established mainly to help empower women in the camps who suffer from poverty, lack of employment and education. Most of its employees are women and 80 percent of the people who benefit from its programmes are women.
    For Mariam Touki, a teacher and supervisor at the vocational training centre, being able to redesign the roof into a playground offers an escape from prison-like conditions.
    "We thought of taking advantage of the rooftop, because it was large and spacious. So we and the volunteers thought of what we could do. So we started gathering donations from our friends and colleagues which helped us build a cover but there is still more to be done. We have to tile the floor and build walls, iron barriers. But we also want plants, we don't want iron barriers, because it would be like a prison. And Shatila is already a big prison," said Touki, on the roof of the centre, the floor of which was full of puddles.
    A building ban by the Lebanese government means that many of the structures in the camps are built illegally and irregularly. Open spaces such as playgrounds and sports fields are a great rarity.
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