‘Cash for work’ for Syrian women refugees in Zahleh

With the support of the Waldensian Evangelical Church and in partnership with Zahleh-Maalaqa and Taanayel Municipality, the Italian ICU association implemented a ‘cash for work’ project over a period of three months. The project targeted the most vulnerable groups of Lebanese and Syrian refugees, especially women and young men over 18 years of age who lack appropriate educational or professional aptitudes to help them find employment. Such program generates income for this group through work in sectors mostly needed by the local and host communities, said ICU director, Jose Antonio Naya Villaverdi. Some 30 women and 30 men, 80% of whom were Syrian refugees, benefited from the 50 thousand-euro program funded by the Evangelical Church. Each beneficiary was expected to receive a daily wage of 15 euros for sorting garbage (as a job for women) and collecting and dumping waste at the sanitary landfill of Zahle and its Caza (for young men). Three of these beneficiaries, namely Shams el Omr, Dalal and Khanem, demonstrate the miserable circumstances women refugees live up with since being displaced by war to Lebanon and forced to become the breadwinners of their families while living in camps for Syrian refugees. (An Nahar, November 29, 2016)