Press Room

AAI in the News

NEF Uses Media to Focus Attention on Suffering of Lebanese Civilians & to Raise Funds for Our Humanitarian Response

By Andrea Couture
Near East Foundation (NEF) - USA
Posted on Wednesday October 4, 2006

NEF Board Chair/President Linda K. Jacobs, Ph.D. presented a statement about our relief activities and additional needs at a press conference in which a number of New York-based, American Muslim, and Arab organizations called for peace and dialogue for Lebanon. The August 9 event was held at the Inter-Church Center, 475 Riverside Drive in New York City, where many religious-affiliated, international organizations have offices. It was organized and chaired by the Council on American Islamic Relations-New York.

At 2 a.m. his time in Amman, Jordan, Rabih Yazbeck—coordinator of NEF’s emergency relief operations for Lebanon and a Lebanese national—went on Radio Islam, a daily talk show beaming out of Chicago and webcast internationally. He was one of three speakers reporting on humanitarian and environment crises facing Lebanon, including representatives of the United Nations and Lebanese environmental organizations.

AT NEW YORK PRESS CONFERENCE

“While we are a development organization, NEF does respond with relief in extreme situations,” Dr. Jacobs explained, noting NEF’s deep roots in Lebanon, where we have worked since our founding during the Armenian genocide and deportations of World War I. “Thousands of individuals and families have already been helped by NEF aid,” she stated.

NEF is providing food, water, sleeping materials, medicines, medical check-ups to displaced families, psycho-social help for children, even harvesting crops in the dangerous Bekaa Valley to be distributed to displaced families—all in collaboration with long-time partner, the Lebanese-based Human Concern International. NEF is working with seven local nongovernmental organizations “who best know where the needs are, including in such badly-affected areas as southern Nabatiyeh and Sidon…. So far medicines have been trucked through Syria without interference,” she continued.

“Yesterday afternoon (August 8) we were informed UN OCHA (Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs) will help us bring supplies into Lebanon via the Royal Jordanian Air Force because of our long record of assistance to the region. Right now our main priorities are food for infants and hygiene supplies, in addition to food and water,” Dr. Jacobs said, calling attention to the NEF website www.nefdev.org where contributions supporting NEF’s relief activities can be made online.

NEF is working with the Jordanian Higher Relief Commission, Jordanian government and Lebanese embassy, out of the NEF Amman office. Dr. Jacobs quoted Rabih Yazbeck’s email sent to NEF’s New York headquarters, describing the situation as of August 8:

“Children compose more than 40 percent of displaced people and they are in very bad psychological condition. What’s more alarming is that many communicable diseases are spreading quickly especially with displaced families. They cannot be controlled by drugs, but by helping people improve their hygiene through awareness and the distribution of hygiene kits. Medications are becoming widely available in stocks, but delivery is slow or impossible on destroyed and bombed roads. Basic food is also becoming a priority.”

Other press conference participants included representatives of Islamic Relief, Arab American Institute, Arab-American Anti Discrimination Committee, Al Khoei Foundation, Women in Islam, Chaplain of the Islamic Center of New York University Khalid Latif, and Stephen McInerny, an American and recent graduate of American University in Beirut who shared his personal experiences during the early days of the war before his evacuation from Beirut.

RADIO ISLAM

“Behind the headlines are real people—children, women, elderly, disabled—people who desperately need help…35 per cent of the dead and injured are children,” relief coordinator Yazbeck told the estimated local Chicago audience of about 100,000, with international listeners as distant as Pakistan.

He continued: “There are a million displaced Lebanese, 25 percent of the population, with 130,000 people in overcrowded public parks and schools, with more people coming. Some have been trapped for 27 days without water, electricity, and other essentials. On one hand you have families forced to flee unexpectedly; and on the other hand, they come to unprepared centers. That’s why we need mattresses, food supplies…,” he itemized the long list of urgently-needed items.

“Right now supplies are diminishing as the crisis continues and we’re not able to buy them in Lebanon in one area and deliver to another,” he added. Relief materials are now coming from neighboring countries like Jordan, but because of access issues “progress is very, very slow. Most of the bridges are destroyed, airports are closed and badly damaged, and trucks are being targeted,” he continued. To help surmount these difficulties and deliver appropriate assistance, he said NEF is partnering with local Lebanese community-based organizations who have the knowledge and close ties to affected communities.

Yazbeck also spoke of the impact of these difficulties on NEF workers in the field and their ”...grief, frustration, sometimes hopeless feelings” because of obstacles encountered as they tried to deliver assistance to people under siege.

Asked to prioritize who got help and what kind, he summarized in one simple declaration: “Everybody needs help.” Even people far from the most hard hit areas are in need of help, he responded, emphasizing the psychological damage to children in particular, which NEF counters with psycho-social support and activities. Relying on the savvy of its local partners, NEF’s priorities were displaced families, children, women, the elderly, dependent adults such as the disabled and those with special needs, large families with many children who have damaged or destroyed housing, and people living in open public areas like parks.

Making a strong plea for financial support, the relief coordinator promoted the NEF website as an opportunity for online donations and to make a statement “people to people.” He concluded by telling radio listeners: “We are badly in need of financial resources to support our work and rely on the generous contributions of individuals and groups…you can make a difference…even a small amount helps. In a crisis like this, the need is enormous.”

(A replay of the hour-long program is available at the website www.radioislam.com homepage under Previous Programs, Tuesday, August 8.)

YOU CAN HELP NOW!

Online: www.nefdev.org.