This post & video appear on 2famous!
We went to a Lebanese bloggers meeting organized by Lebanon Aggregator in AltCity to learn about networking. But fuck, the girls there were just too hot! We completely forgot about our initial mission, and only filmed the pretty girls. We’re awfully sorry about this, and we’ll be more professional next time…
If any of the people that we were supposed to network with reads this, please send us a mail!
These two great men are also behind the Walk of Causes.
Go skate is an image I took during an event hosted by the Lebanese Skating Association. Someone shared it on Tumblr and it has been re-shared and liked 1,208 times!
Many thanks to @iJoeation for the notification!
More skating photos can be found here.
Check Lebanese Skateboarding Association:
LBC International featured my article on 19 January 2012.
People from all walks of life meet on the street. More often than not we see kids, old people and mothers holding babies under the blazing sun or in the icy winter’s cold in dirty and torn clothes asking for money or trying to sell gum, flowers and other items…
Some have worn out shoes, others walk barefoot. Some of them are handicapped and have serious medical conditions. Most of these people are illiterate and have never been to school. When they see a camera they run away, especially those who come from nearby countries; they are afraid of being recognized and deported. They have no papers and often sleep wherever they can… in abandoned buildings, under a bridge etc.
This is the situation that we see, but what’s really going on backstage?
You will find kids that were given up for sale by families who can’t afford feeding them; you will find kids that were kidnapped from families while they were out for a walk. You will find raped women with a kid and nowhere to go; you will find lonely sick people who cannot afford medication. You will find people who traffic humans for a living, exploiting their misery, forcing them into begging and prostitution.
While other kids are tucked in a warm bed having happy dreams and going to school, the unfortunate ones are on the street at 3 a.m., fighting sleep, running after a car or walking behind people asking for money. The thing is that their “keeper” imposed a certain amount to be brought back. The consequences of not doing so are heavy. The fear is obvious. They get beaten, denied food, raped, humiliated and the list goes on. And because of this, some spit on the windshield to scare people or become aggressive when they are told to move away.
Years go by and the same people remain in the same spots. Many more are pouring in. This phenomenon is blowing out of proportion in Lebanon… I once heard two of them screaming at each other: “Go beg elsewhere! This is my area! Leave!” which startled me: That’s how the same people are on the same spots… It’s organized! I also saw a pick-up truck to which the kids ran and climbed into: There was a man yelling and pulling them up…
In a country that doesn’t have clear laws against abuse, where an abused migrant worker that runs away from the home she is employed is imprisoned and later deported; human traders run free and go about their business under the nose of traffic police. Orphanages are overloaded; taking in kids is a long time responsibility; until they can get an education, a job and become financially independent where could they go to? Who would take of them? What about the elderly who have worked all their lives to find themselves at an age where no one would employ them, with no family and nothing left; not even their dignity? What about the handicapped whose chance to find work is nonexistent because not only the streets are not wheelchair friendly but also the companies?
In 2011, Lebanon decided to do something about the street beggars: a joint security, judicial and social approach is expected to be implemented in 15 days. I hope it’s going to be something more than just banning their presence on the highway; most of these people need a chance in life.
Rita Kamel is a blogger and contributor at LBCblogs. You can find her on Twitter here or check out her blog.
LBC International featured my article on 10 January 2012.
Dear Migrant Workers in Lebanon,
No one leaves home if all was going well. Poverty makes people do all kind of things.
A lot of posts have already been written about how Lebanon came to institutionalize racism. Rare are those who have actually met their employers before starting to work. Some of the home helpers get so badly treated that they commit suicide. Many beach resorts ban the right to access the beach or the pool. Some confiscate your passports because they are afraid of you. Are you even getting a day off? You build our homes and offices… you keep them clean. You look after the kids and the pets. You clean our streets and public toilets. You fill our cars with gas and wash them. You make our food, lift the heavy weights, farm our lands. You take on all these jobs because we’re too proud to do them ourselves. I will not generalize though.
Some Lebanese would not mind doing any of the jobs as long as it’s a job; but let’s face it. Most of us are too proud. Minimum wage doesn’t provide us with the bare minimum; so we prefer to stay unemployed or flee to another country. We don’t mind those jobs in other countries, do we? I see the women gathering in the morning taking their coffee and discussing their adventures with their home helpers and nagging. During the school days, I used to see home helpers walking the dogs and construction workers sleeping in the worst conditions during winter.
For many people I know, home helpers have replaced their own mothers. Anything works for you, as long you get paid and send some money back home to your families. Some of you have lived in Lebanon for more than 10 years and speak perfect Arabic. Some of you have families and are sending your kids to school. We’re doing the same abroad. It’s understandable.
Dear Migrant Workers in Lebanon, for whatever job you decide to take and salary you agree on, remember that you are human. Whether we are the same color or not, we both breathe, bleed, feel pain and happiness but some of us tend to forget it and some companies base their business models on some sort of human trade.
Today, we live in a time where mothers take cans from their children’s hands and throw them out of the window and men empty the trash from their car on the ground where they parked. Today, we leave our popcorn boxes and cans in the movie theaters, on the floor, before we go out. Today, we leave public toilets in an unacceptable state. Today, we litter anywhere because we expect that someone will clean up after us. Are we authorized to litter just because we hired migrant workers to clean up?
The sad part of the story is that the same people who litter complain about littering. I want to see clear laws concerning any human on Lebanese soil that do not classify as human. No human life is more important than another. I want to see littering punished. It’s already stressful when one leaves their home country because of economic reasons…why do we create ways to make it even harder? They are helping us getting a lot of jobs done!
Dear people, next time you go out from a public toilet and see the migrant helper staff who will be cleaning after you, think to say “Thank you” on your way out. Actually, it would not hurt to say “Thank you” every time anyone does something for you to live at a higher standard.
A better Lebanon is one of openness and respect to all people, regardless of their origins, everybody is treated as a human being.
Rita Kamel is a blogger and LBCblogs contributor. You can find her on Twitter here or check out her website.
Photo courtesy of Fadi BouKaram
AltCity featured me in an article on its new section! It’s called: Features. Thank you!
There are a lot of different ways to change the society around you, and Rita Kamel believes that changing a cultural mindset requires a change in incentives, not rhetoric. Rita has seen the pragmatic side working in Human Resources, and she’s delved into the idealistic end of the pool with her blogging and her work at Beirut Street Photographers . Pulling together these two ends of the spectrum, Rita has a business idea that doesn’t tell people to be activists; it shows them that it is the most sensible thing to do.
Rita came up with the idea while attending workshops at AltCity that were put on by the British Council for creative entrepreneurs. Rita’s focus, eco-fashion, came directly out of the workshops, which trained its participants to find the middle ground between meaning and money in making products in a market. The program, which focuses intensely on defining ideas and mapping out business plans, declares that selling a creative product is no different than selling anything else: it’s all about finding what people want and giving it to them.
The same thing goes for activism, Rita thinks, and eco-design is exactly the sort of product that can provide both high quality and high social impact. Eco-fashion is based on many of the same principles of organic foods, which started to enter the mainstream consciousness around 10 years ago. The style aims to reduce human impact on the environment by promoting sustainable practices in clothing production such as using organic raw materials and sustainable land use practices.
Things like organic farming, fair trade employment, and cruelty free ranching come at a certain cost, but when asked if eco-fashion prices can reach the mainstream, Rita retorts, “so, healthy is only [within] the reach of the rich?” That may have been the case, but she argues that science has evolved, and today the problem isn’t just cost, but marketing alternatives to consumers and getting the government to promote healthier life styles.
Furthermore, it could be that the cutting-edge styles in eco-fashion are environmentally conscious because they are cheaper and produce less waste. Manufacturing locally and using recycled materials – or even plastic – to make new, high quality textiles cuts down on industrial waste and, potentially, costs as recycling technology improves. Simply producing more durable clothing to reduce waste comes with higher initial costs for consumers, but long-term savings. Here, Kamel’s background in visual arts is a plus that can help compensate for the aesthetic challenges of a product that is made from old water bottles.
In the end, the potential for eco-fashion in Lebanon relies on the ability of designers to make appealing products and for people like Rita to make sure that they are accessible. “I think the community exists,” she says regarding socially conscious consumers, “it’s a matter of giving an affordable alternative to the choices they currently have”.
