“We don’t break families, we build them!”
My third day, second round of Jina Al Dar was in Saida. We were split into two groups me and one of the volunteers, Zeina, stayed in Naddaf with Fadi and the kids and Rana with the women. As we distributed the refreshments from chocolate, biscuits, water and juice each one of us went to their stations. I was with Rana and the women and as we went upstairs children from the ages 5 or 6 were going downstairs to start with their activities; the women were mostly wearing abayas and niqabs.
As we entered the small room we were giving the workshop, we were asked to take off our shoes since the room is a mousallah-place for prayer- and we respectably took off our shoes. Rana was great with the women as she started off with the safety/emergency guidelines such as when getting sunburnt, cut, nose bleed… the women were very indulged and they shared a lot of their experiences and asked a lot of questions about if what they’re doing is right or wrong for example one of them shared an experience that a friend of hers placed olive oil on a burn and Rana explained how and why it’s wrong to do so.
When Rana finally started talking about sexual harassment and gender inequality some women cut her off telling her about their religious point of views and Rana made sure not to sound like she’s being aggressive. The ladies then started asking what do the hotline do and Rana kept telling them “We don’t break families, we build them!” as she made sure to explain that men go into rehabilitation and we try to help women financially, for example, one of the women Abaad helped previously by teaching her how to manually do soap.
The women then thanked us for the workshop and told us we did a great job. As we waited for the bus, Zeina and I, played catch ball with the kids that they enjoyed so much. When the bus arrived we made our way to Abra, as we entered the city for a moment I thought we were in the wrong place with the fancy building and villas but little did I know that a small left turn took us to another place completely with a 2 floor building with about eight rooms on each floor. The bugs and insects infested the place with green mountains around them. As we arrived the puppet show already started with men, women and children all laughed through the gender equality show. As we distributed the refreshments and the show ended we went back to our bus still surprised by the turn of scenery of the poor and the rich in one small area.