When leaving no one behind means ‘fixing’ those moving ahead: A call for collective action against disablism

 Grace Khawam writes:

More than 80% unemployed, 45% under the poverty line [1], 258 wounded and at least 42 newly disabled by the Beirut explosion [2]. Lack of inclusive education mainstreamed in schools, lack of implementation of legal protection frameworks, lack of affordable healthcare services [3], and lack of accessible online learning, health information and vaccination venues throughout the pandemic. This is a quick snapshot of the current state-of-affairs of persons with disabilities in Lebanon. The needs and rights of persons with disabilities have been systematically deprioritized in Lebanon, not only historically, but with every new crisis, every new humanitarian response, and every new development action.  

Why are people with disabilities in Lebanon constantly left behind? Contrary to what many may think, it is not because they are more vulnerable or need more special care: it is because they have been consistently marginalized in policies and practices, through socially imposed restrictions, and direct and indirect forms of institutional discrimination - this is what disablism means [4]. While refusing a discourse of victimization, let us unpack the underpinnings of this systemic marginalization. Let us first picture this: a world where pavements, buildings and public spaces are wheelchair-accessible; where sign language is a national language taught in schools; where quality healthcare is available for all; where school lessons are adapted to each learner’s needs; where workplaces provide reasonable accommodations for each employee to excel at their work. If we remove all barriers, all restrictions imposed by the environment, by people’s attitudes, by systems and structures, would persons with disabilities still be left behind?  

Education in Emergencies: five critical points for shifting power

 

An informal school for Syrian children in Beirut (Photo C Brun)

Cathrine Brun and Maha Shuayb* write:

Over the past 20 years, efforts to include education in humanitarian response, framed as Education in Emergencies (EiE), have been quite successful. However, EiE work and its conceptualisation are fraught with challenges. Arguably, there has been insufficient critique of the field. Here, we present five points of critique of education in emergency based on our research experience in Lebanon. In conclusion, we suggest ways forward to address these gaps. 

The Screaming Womb: Life Amid Despair

 Grace Khawam writes:

Artist: Joan Abou-Haidar, August 2020

She was born in the Golden Era. She was as beautiful as the sunshine in fields of wheat on a hot summer day. A happy childhood, playfully spent in carnival-like markets full of colored silk, rose water soap, scents of thyme and jasmine flowers. Visitors came from all over the world to see her, to admire her beauty as she turned into a shy teenager. Movie theaters, concerts, cultural spaces, were bursting with admirers, where poetry and music intertwined, drunken souls dancing through endless nights. Nothing predicting what will happen to her next. A bus attacked and all its passengers killed. A war declared. Scared, naïve, she is caught in the clashes, with nowhere to hide. Her body is bruised from beatings, punctured by gunfire. She endured, silently, crying tears of blood, as she witnessed hatred, greed and terror. Fifteen years of civil war, but she withstood. She stood up, an unyielding fierce young woman, prepared to pick up her shattered pieces and ready to give again. And she gave. With generosity. With love. With peace. She became the symbol of cultural diversity, of metropolitanism, of urban prosperity, of religious tolerance. This is when her fathers, her kin, but also strangers started to take interest in her. Strong, greedy men of power. Warlords. “We will save you” they told her. She needed no saving, but they did not listen to her. The self-proclaimed protectors spread out their grasps, clutching her throat, trapping her with their wretched claws. She became a prisoner. A prisoner of their narcissism and corruption. A prisoner of their business deals. She gave birth to sons and daughters, the product of her rape. She raised them with so much care and affection, with much respect for themselves and love for their country, only to see them runaway to faraway lands, escaping the clenches of the greedy powerful men. They carry with them their dreams and their memories, and her blood running through their veins, wherever they go. She is an older woman now. With heavy steps and painful memories, she moves on, as she has always done. We can still hear the songs written for her by long lost lovers. Many will chant her name, in the faint hope of reawakening her beautiful youthful days. 

Until it happened. The day that changed her forever. A massive explosion blows her body, ripping her from the inside. An explosion caused by them, the greedy evil men. Betrayed by her lovers, abused by her protectors, she lies still on the floor, her bloodied hands on her butchered womb. From the top of her collapsed lungs, she screams in pain and agony. "What have you done to me?" she cries in despair. "What have you done?"

We all know her story. We all know her name. She is Beirut. 

Workshop: Navigating from education to employment in crisis and uncertainty

Zoe Jordan writes:

Young people’s position in the labour market is increasingly precarious and uncertainty is an ever-present dimension for young people living in protracted displacement and other crisis settings. Over the last decade, much progress has been made in developing frameworks to provide education in crisis. However, there is currently limited research examining the relationship between education and employment prospects in such contexts.

As part of the ESRC/GCRF and IDRC funded research programme “From education to employment. Trajectories for young people in Lebanon and Jordan in the context of protracted displacement”, CENDEP, in collaboration with the Centre for Lebanese Studies (CLS), is hosting an international workshop responding to the need for greater insight into young people’s trajectories from education to employment in crisis settings from 28 – 29 April 2020. Preliminary findings from the research programme will be presented, and we invite researchers and policy makers working in other contexts of uncertainty to join us to share insights, analytical approaches, and empirical realities.

We will be questioning education and employment strategies among young people and their families in the context of crisis; intersectionality and its workings in young people’s trajectories, focusing particularly on legal status, gender, disability, class and other social positions; the relevance of education for employment in the context of protracted displacement; and how young people are categorized and conceptualised, and its implications for policy and practice.

Paper presentations (15 – 20 minutes) and interventions for a roundtable discussion (5 minutes) are invited. Please send short abstracts (up to 200 words) indicating which format you would like to present, to Zoe Jordan (zjordan@brookes.ac.uk) by 17 March 2020.

To find out more: https://www.brookes.ac.uk/about-brookes/events/navigating-from-education-to-employment-in-crisis-and-uncertainty/

Work in Progress: Heteronormativity and intersectionality within humanitarian responses and campaigns

The speaker at this Thursday's Work in Progress seminar will be Hadi Damien of Beirut Pride. Hadi will reflect on his experience in Lebanon and working for LGBTIQ+ rights in the context of economic recession, protracted refugee crisis and the ongoing revolution. 

Hadi states in his personal reflections that “I use the verb ‘to understand’ instead of acknowledge, tolerate and accept.” He rejects the expression of sexual minorities because of the heteronormativity that it indicates and suggest that we must move away from hierarchies of identities. With these insights also come the need to discuss politics of representation and, for Hadi, this mean, rejecting the word ‘representation’ because how can we represent another person’s identity? Who can speak for others, and how can we make it possible to create a platform where experiences can be shared rather than represented? 

It is in the process of creating this platform that we must also ask: How can change happen, how we can support each other through initiatives that may help to make change? Beirut Pride is an example of such an initiative that is making change: a multisectoral and multi-partner approach that can address the manifold aspects of the LGBTIQ+ file. Pride is an example of visibility which is key to deconstruct myths, lies and prejudice that surround the LGBTIQ+ file: “a framework that brings several sectors to work together such as the executive sector (government, ministries, security agencies and their respective directions), the legislative sector (parliament, members of parliament and relevant committees), the judiciary sector (general prosecution, judges and courts), the academic sector (universities, schools, institutes, research centers and institutions of learning), the civil society (LGBTIQ+ people, key populations, opinion makers, celebrities, their fanbase, NGOs, social and political organizations (unions, syndicates), religious institutions, the silent majority, the critical mass, the general public, elected officials, present politicians, and the Lebanese diaspora), the human rights structures (OHCHR, IE-SOGI, HR Defenders, European Court for HR), the corporate world (businesses, insurance companies, employment and labor laws), the development partners (international programs, international NGOs and embassies) and the media (TV, radios, Portals, newspapers, advertisement, storytelling, etc).”

Hadi continues: “The goal is to multiply the shared, common spaces where people can be, where they can express themselves, where they are seen, where they can speak, where they are heard, where their contribution is noted. We often seek to develop procedures and methods to be able to include the others - I trust it is time we focus on deciding to include people, and then the procedures and methods will be organically developed. It’s the practice that produces theory.” 

The potential of moving mountains and creating change through Beirut Pride is then ultimately to accept that may not strive for ‘safe spaces’ but ‘brace spaces’: ‘safer spaces’ “where you get emotional and mental support to fight your battles, a few of which you share with people who go to this same brave space. The intersectionality of the LGBTIQ+ file, the way our layers interlace and affect each other, renders unique every one of our experiences, and therefore, there is no one, common, global battle to fight or one safe space to build. Each one of us requires our own customized safe space to recollect thoughts, to recharge energy, to get support, and then go back to all the spaces, safe or not, and make them inclusive.”

The seminar is at 16.30-18.00 on Thursday 27 February in room JHB303 in the John Henry Brookes building, Headington Campus. (The full list of seminars for this semester is here - but please note that the seminar on 12 March has been postponed until the autumn.)

Please get in touch with the Oxford Human Rights Festival (OxHRF@brookes.ac.uk), if you would like to read some of Hadi’s reflections before the seminar.

Work in Progress: Exceptional and futureless humanitarian education in Lebanon

Maha Shuayb and Cathrine Brun write about their Work in Progress seminar this Thursday, entitled Exceptional and futureless humanitarian education in Lebanon: Prospects for shifting the lens. The seminar is from 16.30 to 18.00 on Thursday, 7 November in JHB307.

In this talk, we aim to unpack and analyse the potentials and shortcomings of a humanitarian framework for educational responses in protracted displacement. Most literature on this topic tends to examine humanitarianism and education separately and few studies have analysed the effect of the humanitarian model on the education provisions and policies and most importantly on the outcomes. Humanitarianism is concerned with the immediate while education is a future oriented-activity. Hence the interrelation between the two might appear an oxymoron. At the same time, calls to shift the humanitarian discourse from relief and survival to development have given strong grounds to include education as part of the humanitarian response in a situation of crisis. Yet there is a lack of clarity concerning the concept of development which the education provisions rest on. In the talk we will unpack the concept of education in emergency and its effect on students’ schooling outcomes. The study focuses on Lebanon as a case to analyse the potentials and limitations of this model. To do so, the study analyses the educational policies and interventions Lebanon introduced in the last seven years since the outbreak of the Syrian crisis and examine their impact on the education outcomes of Syrian children. In conclusion, we reflect on some of the potential outcomes of the current model and introduces some alternatives to the current education system for refugees. 

Maha Shuayb is the director of the Centre for Lebanese Studies (CLS). Maha has a PhD in education from the University of Cambridge. She also teaches part-time at the Lebanese American University. She is currently a visiting fellow at the University of Cambridge. Maha’s research focuses on the sociology and politics of education particularly equity and equality in education and the implications of the politicization of education particularly on marginalized groups. Over the past eight years, Maha has been occupied with the education response to the Syrian Refugee crisis in Lebanon. She has headed a number of research studies looking at access and quality of education for refugees and the bottlenecks. A recent studies include a comparative longitudinal study between Lebanon, Turkey, Germany and Australia which examines the impact of status on education provisions for refugees in the four countries. 

Professor Cathrine Brun is a human geographer and Director of the Centre for Development and Emergency Practice (CENDEP), the School of Architecture at Oxford Brookes University, UK. Her research-interests concern forced migration and conflict, housing and home; theory, ethics and practice of humanitarianism. Working closely with local and national organisations in places like Georgia, Sri Lanka, Malawi and Lebanon, her approach to research is qualitative, ethnographic and using action research as a way of co-producing knowledge. Some recent publications include “Living with shifting borders: peripheralisation and the production of invisibility” (2017, Geopolitics); “Mobilising home for long term displacement: a reflection on the durable solutions” (with Anita H. Fábos, 2017, Journal of Human Rights Practice,); “Homemaking in limbo? A conceptual framework” (with Anita H. Fàbos, Refuge, 2015) and “There is no Future in Humanitarianism” (History and Anthropology, 2015).

Maha, the CLS and Cathrine and CENDEP currently collaborate on an ESRC and IDRC funded research programme on From Education to Employment: young people’s trajectories in the context of protracted displacement in Lebanon and Jordan.

A visit to Syrian refugee settlements in Lebanon

Abeer Al-Mutawakel (DEP 2016-17) writes:

In May 2017, I went on my first field trip with Oxford Brookes University to Lebanon. The field trip aimed to study the impact of displacement on Lebanon, particularly on the city of Saida and its surroundings, given the existing Palestinian and Syrian refugees in the country. Field trips are part of CENDEP’s program offered to students, which complement the academic side of research, and offer a practical side. During our stay in Saida we visited multiple Syrian refugee shelters and conducted many interviews. Visiting a shelter, and getting a chance to talk with people was a completely different experience compared to reading about it. Talking with Syrian refugees helped me to connect with them, feel their suffering, and learn about their journeys and the changes in their lives before and during the war in Syria. It made me feel the impact of a conflict in reality, and not just on paper.

Shheem informal camp

The first camp we visited was in Shheem. The camp has 380 people in it according to the Lebanese owner of the land who allowed them to stay there for free. They came from the different parts of Syria. They built their own shelters using donated materials. They were simple rooms, but Syrian women proudly referred to them as ‘my house’ when talking about them.

We all gathered in one place with the women in the camp for a group discussion. They welcomed us, offering us tea although we knew that they are short of basic commodities. During our gathering, the first noticeable thing was the care given to their looks, having make up on and nice outfits. It showed that women care about their appearance and dignity despite their hard living conditions.

Group discussion with women at Shheem camp

The second noticeable thing is the pregnancy rate among young women. Most young women in that camp were pregnant and had babies and toddlers at the same time. This concerned me about the opportunities for the coming generation.

During our group conversation, the Syrian women were open to discuss their situation, how their husbands are finding it hard to find jobs, and if they do, they are not paid fairly. They expressed their dissatisfaction about the relevance of aid being received both in terms of services (such as teaching them how to wash their hands or babies, which they found insulting) or in-kind contributions (such as clothes that do not fit their kids). This reflects the importance of understanding the context and conducting needs assessment, which was always emphasised on DEP students during multiple modules in its program.

Inside a house at Shheem camp

 

After our group discussion, I had a chance to have a side conversation with one of the refugee women who was one of the first comers to Shheem camp. She has been living there for six years. She has two girls and two boys. She invited me to her house; I was amazed how tidy and organised her house is, how she decorated the fridge and TV to make it feel like home for them. Although these are simple things, they made me feel her resilience and adaptability. Before leaving her house, she whispered to me excitedly that she has been offered to travel with her family to a foreign country, but did not know where yet. After six years in Shheem camp, she hopes that her and her family’s life will change. 

Pepsi shelter in Saida

We visited another shelter in Saida known as Pepsi. It was an old abandoned factory, which had three upper levels consisting of multiple apartments and two separated basements consisting of over 40 rooms for storage which were now all rented to Syrian refugees. There were 130 to 150 families living in this shelter with at least 800 kids. The interesting thing about this shelter is that all the refugees living in it are from the same town in Syria. When the war first started, families sent away youth between the age of 14-26 to avoid them being recruited by fighting groups, and youth later started calling for their families to come and join them. 

The basement rooms being rented in this shelter were not in proper liveable condition. Rooms looked like a garage and most of them did not have windows and therefore no air or sunlight. The basement was damp and dark.

Basement of Pepsi shelter

Some rooms would house a family of seven, and some even more (one of the rooms I visited was split into two, having the first wife and her five daughters in one half, and the other wife with her five kids in the other). Most rooms have a small kitchen built within the room and they all have shared toilets except for few. These conditions encourage the spread of diseases and impacts the growth of children living there. Some rooms are under the main road, and are at risk of having their ceiling collapse as happened with one of the rooms we visited. On top of these poor conditions, Syrian refugees pay rent of around $100 - $160 per room depending on the size. The apartments being rented in upper levels were much better and more expensive ($350/month).

Room in Pepsi shelter basement

A family we interviewed living in an apartment said that if they had a chance to live in the basement they would go for it, but they came late and there was no room for them, so they have to pay the higher rent. They can rent a better apartment outside the shelter with the same amount, but they’d rather stay with their ‘community’. Moreover, most kids living in shelters are not going to school. Parents worry about getting the basic needs such as food, shelter and health. In Pepsi shelter only a third of the children go to school and numbers keep dropping down because kids are expected to help in supporting their families.

Children pose for the camera in Pepsi shelter basement