Browsing Posts tagged Lebanon

Fun(d) Raising tweetup & Kids with cancer initiative overview

1 comment

Fun(d) Raising tweetup & Kids with cancer initiative overview is a post written by Fun(d)Raising.

Fun(d) Raisers got to meet on a lovely tweetup at Noodles-ABC Ashrafieh and discuss different initiatives to help raising awareness about cancer and specially help unfortunate kids fighting that disease and hopefully win.

This initiative was kicked in by , you can read about it all on her blog. During our meeting Rita introduced her idea more in detail for the tweeps who didn’t know exactly the whole scope of the initiative and proceeded to summarizing what we thought would be a good action plan.
Then of course, suggestions and ideas started pouring in and hopefully all of them will be put into action as part of the initiative or as new ones.

First of all here is more about Rita’s action plan and the different initiative from our meeting

Meeting with the Children Cancer Center in Lebanon (St Jude)
First, Rita went visiting cancer centers and associations to get in touch with them and to know what they actually need. She met with a lovely lady from the Children Cancer Center in Lebanon. She told us the story of St Jude, took us around the center for a tour and discussed with us how we could help. What they honestly and seriously need is money, I mean MONEY as in a lot a lot of money ( operating a cancer center that treats kids for free is not any cheap thing )

We honestly told her that raising that much is not within our scope, but since our community members are active social networking members, we agreed with her that we can help spread the word, awareness and link back to their online donation page. People who donate are kindly requested to add the keyword “Fund(d) Raising” as a comment on their donation. Hopefully then, we will be able to involve many people online inside and outside Lebanon and help spread the word.

During our tour in the center, we met a doctor who stressed that it would be lovely if we can donate wigs and how much difference it makes .

Meeting with Chance
Chance is an organization that also helps treating kids with cancer . We went to one of their meetings, they have a series of events they do to raise money. We can easily help promote those events and spread the word.

Tamanna
We got the word about Tamana from the twitter – Tamanna is actually a wish-list for kids critical illnesses from different centers/hospitals and from different backgrounds. The goal of Tamanna is to simply bring happiness and brighten up the days of a kid going through treatment by simply asking them to make a wish and then granting it .
The wish list includes stuff like get a ps2, have a computer, go on a shopping spree, travel, meet a celebrity…

We got very excited over Tamanna idea since it gives us an easy to do goal list. It is targeted, we can easily create positive change in someone’s life by donating simple objects that parents can’t afford anymore considering the costs of medical treatments.

Wigs or “Mitlik Mitleh”
With summer around the corner, many ladies are heading to hairdressers. Many of us have a long hair that becomes an annoyance in summer, hairdressers are happy to cut them, but most take those long strands to turn them into extensions for rent.

What we want to do is simply spread the word and encourage girls with long hair to cut theirs. It is painless and simply, hair grows back easily.

The price of a wig with medium length is 300 usd in average. With the the buzz we can get couple of wigs done and as some of the fun(d) raisers suggested, why not sell wigs in exchange of money and donate it ?

Fun(d) raising gaming event
As suggested by as suggested by dashkoun, it would be extra exciting and fun to host gaming events . girls and guys will battle , race , play till finger muscles cramp ( ok, maybe a bit less ) we can rent a place in hamra with a lovely atmosphere, gamers can play, others can enjoy entertainement on big TVs (a movie screening anyone? ) . we can use this event also as a get together .

Yummi cookup as suggested by and
Who can get enough from enjoying yummi crunchy stuff ?  obviously no one ! – specially stuff cooked with love are hard to resist. That is why joelle and ghassan will be collaboration to create what they promised us to be the yummiest fund raising event yet. And maybe as darine pointed out, if you guys are up to it – we could have a day out to enjoy the food in some cool location and discover a lebanese area.

That’s a lot of stuff, where to get started ?
Many girls are already cutting their hair, so priority has to go for the wig initiative. We will then create text, banners for you guys to put on your blogs and to link to online donation page. after that we all get together for a wrap up meeting and gaming session where we collect the strands and evaluate our progress and hoepuflly plan our next move in detail with joelle and ghassan.

How to proceed ?
You can spread the word using any tool u want, u can tweet about it , share of facebook, put a blog post to engage ur reader, use the oh-very-powerful lebanese word of mouth to let people know about the collecting wig initiative , we will be calling that “mitlik-mitleh”.
We will have a default text you can use on ur blog or share on twitter/faceook. but it would be cooler if you post about this from your own point of view. Also if you have any ideas on how we can create more buzz, let us know by leaving a comment here or on the forums.
If you are a blogger and want to add a banner to support a cancer center or re-direct to their donation page, please get in touch with us to explain all details to you and to send you all the images/links and how-to.

Hope we will hear back from you , this initiative can only work if we all collaborate on it !

I’ll leave you with some of the pictures from the event.

 

Register as a self-employed professional in Lebanon

2 comments

My dear friends,

I know that many of you are self-employed professionals getting work from big companies but are not registered with the Ministry of Finance yet.
Here is the Income Tax Guide For Self-Employed (Liberal) Professionals in English and the Income Tax Guide For Self-Employed (Liberal) Professionals in Arabic for you to see how it works.

If you decide to register, Congratulations! You can start by filling out Form M10 & Form M11. Submit them to the Ministry of Finance (AM!). They could need two days processing at end of which an official document with a number to include on the invoices you issue will be given.

I hope that this will help you.

Best regards!

Welcomeness vs politeness

10 comments

14 March was my brother’s birthday. With no idea of what to get him, I went out on a hunt with my boyfriend from mall to mall looking for what could make him happy.

While checking out from the supermarket at Citymall, a bottle of water in my hand and confused in my head, I noticed a client, an American guy, who was in front of me. He said “Thank you young man” out loud to the cashier and took his grocery bags. The cashier smiled back at him.

I looked at my boyfriend with a smile. He said: “Europeans and Americans may not be extremely welcoming, but they are polite. In our area it’s a bit the opposite; we tend to be more welcoming than polite. Already obvious in the way we drive on the roads.”

I don’t know why, but I started to think whether I said “Thank you” enough during the day.

In the evening, empty handed, I went to my brother, gave him a hug and said: “Thank you!”

About the NSSF in Lebanon

No comments

My dear friends,

Here is most of what you need to know about the الصندوق الوطني للضمان الاجتماعي in Arabic (National Social Security Fund  or Caisse Nationale de Sécurité Sociale) in Lebanon.

These are the applicable laws. Whenever you have doubts, always ask. No one will care for your rights more than you do.

Best regards!

Eyewitness – No way out

No comments

Date: 14 February, 2010
Time: 02:00 pm
Place: Dik El Mehdi
Situation: Eye-witnessed roadworks that closed the road without notice. What a surprise!
Action: Got out of the car, angry, looking around if there was anyone. Found a group of workers. Told them I needed to cross. One of them came, apologizing for the mess, asked me to go back inside the car because it was going to get dusty and started clearing the road by taking the broken fragment to the sides. Dusty, but better than nothing!
Conclusion: During roadworks, it would be nice to notice that roads need to stay cleared for cars and to put a sign especially when there is no other way out.

Eyewitness – Double parked!

No comments

Eyewitness has a new story for you today!

Sent by: 
Website: www.smex.org
Date: 10 February, 2010
Time: 10:45 am
Place: Badaro 43, next to the NSSF Center
Situation: While I was working, I heard a lot of honking from a six wheels truck. The sound was horrible, a non-stop honk for 15 minutes. The truck was trying to get to the construction site nearby but there was a police car double parked obstructing the way. This created a huge traffic.
Action: I took few pictures of the vehicle and went downstairs to double-check the plate number. Then dialed 1744 (specialized in police complaints) and told them the situation. They took my name. Called me back after 15 minutes saying that they sent somebody over but the guy apparently had already left. They were very nice to me, and respectful. In the end, I told them that they had the car plate number with the time and some pictures. They promised that he will be punished.
Conclusion: Make sure to contact the person who will fix the situation. You will find in our public services departments people who want the major problems such as corruption, disrespect to the law we are facing everyday fixed…and they need us as citizens to help them and push in the right direction.

Thank you for your contribution!

Eyewitness – She thought she’d run away with it!

4 comments

Enough is enough! Enough with silence!

It’s not the first time that someone does something wrong and thinks he/she’d get away with it. Worse, is that sometimes we eyewitness them in action and don’t act! I don’t mean to hurt anyone but some sense of responsibility wouldn’t hurt either…because this might happen to you too!

Date: 8 February, 2010
Time: 10:00 pm
Place: ABC Parking Level B1 - Ashrafieh
Situation: Eye-witnessed a blue Porsche Cayenne coming out of parking and hitting the Mercedes behind it. Not once! But twice! Woman of certain age gets out to check HER car leaving the Mercedes’ front bumper damaged. She saw us looking shocked and ignored us. Couple comes in 1 minute later to get in their car.
Action: Went towards the couple, told them what happened & gave them license plate number.
Conclusion: I would have really respected this woman if she had taken 10 seconds to leave a note with her contact to the owner of the Mercedes to make up for the accident.
I’m left thinking of all the people whose cars get damaged this way felt feeling helpless, the people who get away with it because of the eyewitnesses who went silent.

If you ever eyewitness something that bothers you, feel free to share it!

Thank you.

Lebanese Labor Law

5 comments

My dear friends,

I know how hard it is to find a suitable job nowadays.
Here is a soft copy of the Lebanese Labor Law قوانين العمل (means Labor Law in Arabic).
If you are a Lebanese person working in Lebanon, these are your rights; know them and do not settle for less!

Some companies play around with them and are not aligned. Whenever you have doubts, always ask. No one will care for your rights more than you do. I hope that this will help you.

Best regards!

Beirut Water Taxi

4 comments

Explaining the idea, they are saying:

“Because the traffic congestion at the Lebanese Coastal highways has reached unacceptable chaos causing a waste of time of Human Resources in terms of all those wishing to come to work in the capital Beirut, in addition to a waste of car fuel and causing tension to all Lebanese commuters alike be it coming into Beirut from the north cities such as Jounieh and from the south such as the city of Sidon and there is no solution in sight which would involve land transport, thus the idea of using the sea bed as a readymade highway for the Beirut Water Taxi vessels makes perfect sense. Thus our Mission and Vision is to resolve the traffic congestion in the coastal highways of Lebanon and make entry and departure into Beirut as easy and fast as possible.

Lebanon Water Transportation Alternatives, sal – LWTA – a Lebanese entity conceptualized to galvanize the Lebanese Way of Life by delivering a sustainable solution for Traffic Demand Management across the Lebanese Coast.

The concept is developed by Lebanese for Lebanese crossing political and demographic boundaries.
Such a concept to be translated into a nation-wide beneficial project requires the support and involvement of all the local communities serviced.
The main support and involvement of the Lebanese communities across the coast are best represented by the venerated state-actors of the Lebanese Government.”

But I wonder…Is that a viable solution? What about rethinking the entire bus transportation system for instance and put Charles Helou station at use, turning the very congested historical areas into pedestrian only with a shuttle system to get in and out?

Could we survive without our daily dose of traffic and valet parking service?

Talk about good news

3 comments

 

On my way to work, I came across this ad. From a marketing point of view, it looks different from what we are used to and it is sending a direct message to BlackBerry (Couldn’t they just have sent an e-mail to BlackBerry instead of a mass billboard ad with all the people in the country in CC?) but from an ethical perspective, I am not sure how naming your competition makes you better than them or more desired/wanted or even if it is legal… (Many countries do not allow companies to name other companies in their ads.) Now, I know that Nokia trying everything to level Blackberry…It’s written on the billboards! So what is it going to be? Nokia or BlackBerry? 

David Trott’s opinion on the subject on BrandRepublic : Whatever you do, don’t mention the name  

Powered by WordPress Web Design by SRS Solutions © 2010 ritakml