Checkpoint selfies are not an option as having been given the security all clear to do so we arrive in Tripoli, the north Lebanese city from where last fortnight’s Beirut suicide bombings originated. The army, who discovered a further 40 suicide belts during raids on local addresses, believes a sustained, ISIS-initiated terror campaign was planned.
We’re here to be briefed by Basmeh & Zeitooneh, AKA Relief & Development, a non-government organisation based in Shiraa Square, which is the buffer zone between the pro-Assad factions living in the Gabal and Mohsen districts and the neighbouring Quobbe and Tabbari ones who want to see the Syrian President deposed.
It’s too dangerous to survey our surroundings from street level, but safely ensconced at a third-floor window you can see the bullet holes pock marking all the buildings. While the rest of Tripoli is teeming with people going about their mid-morning business, Shiraa Square is almost deserted.
With the number of tit-for-tat shootings there escalating, the Lebanese Armed Forces in April 2014 effectively locked down the area by placing tanks and heavily fortified checkpoints on all the approach roads. A hack trying to take a sneaky photo of either of the aforementioned is likely to find themselves arrested and deported in double-quick time.
Concern are partnering with Basmeh & Zeitooneh to fund a free, month-long embroidery course for Lebanese, Syrian and Palestinian women who in the normal sectarian run of things wouldn’t get to meet. Friendships blossom, house visits are exchanged and their respective husbands and families brought together. Well, that’s the plan.
“The initiative is only four months old, but already we’ve seen some of the women socialising outside of the centre,” enthuses Basmeh & Zeitooneh Operations Manager for North Lebanon, Omar Assaf. “They spend an hour a day here acquiring their advanced embroidery skills, and can then make up to $300 or $400 a month, which by Lebanese standards is a lot of money, working from home.
“Priority is given to those who are most socially and economically vulnerable, such as widows and women from households where there is no existing income. We’ve just opened a nursery downstairs, so they can bring their young children with them.”
Hodah, a mother of two who fled the bombed-out city of Homs in 2013, tells us that, “Coming here has given my life new purpose. I’ve made friends and am learning skills that will help me to look after my family properly.”
With a lot of the Syrian women suffering from war trauma, and their Tripoli-born counterparts finding it difficult to live under what amounts to martial law, Omar and his team also offer them 15 psychosocial sessions.
Disappointingly, the ladies who are being helped to become master bakers aren’t in until the afternoon, so we don’t get to sample their by all accounts world class muffins and fancy pastries.
We do, however, get to examine the wonderful scarves and purses produced by the embroiders, which are sold in both Beirut and Berlin.
In addition to his Basmeh & Zeitooneh work, Omar has launched a project to address the fact that only 1% - no, that’s not a typo - of students from Quobbe and Tabbani pass their high school exams and therefore have the chance to escape the extreme poverty they’ve grown up in by going to university.
Warm and welcoming, but clearly scarred by their experiences, the embroidery course women hope that attending the centre will bring about a profound change in their lives too.

[link]www.basmeh-zeitooneh.org/component/tags/tag/6-embroidery
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Read Stuart Clark’s other Lebanon blogs at

[link]www.hotpress.com/Lebanon/news/iHot-Pressi-visits-Syrian-refugees-in-border-settlements/15837969.html[/link]

[link]www.hotpress.com/Lebanon/news/Hot-Press-to-visit-Syrian-refugees-in-the-Lebanon/15835479.html[/link]

[link]www.hotpress.com/Lebanon/politics/frontlines/Hot-Press-arrives-in-Lebanon-on-its-Syrian-refugee-fact-finding-mission/15837445.html
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