CNEWA

Dbayeh’s Children Face Daunting Challenges

As resources typically used for educational purposes are reallocated for emergency aid because of the Israel-Hezbollah conflict, children at Lebanon’s majority-Christian Dbayeh refugee camp are grappling with the challenge of growing up amid war.

Dbayeh camp in Lebanon, about eight miles north of Beirut, was formally established in 1956 by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) to provide better care for the Christian Palestinian refugees who had fled their homes and villages in the Galilee during the Arab-Israeli War in 1948. Until UNRWA’s intervention, Pontifical Mission, an initiative of the Holy See and placed under the direction and administration of CNEWA, had been the primary source of aid supporting the families who had taken refuge offered by the Maronite monks living in Dbayeh.

As a camp, Dbayeh was founded as a temporary refuge. Yet as the Arab-Israeli conflict raged on, and Palestinian refugees remained unable to return to their homeland, the camp became a city and a home in its own right, a place that has sheltered generations of families.

“The situation is very difficult,” said Sister Magdalena Smet of the Little Sisters of Nazareth, who has been present at the Dbayeh camp since 1987.

“They are refugees, their children are refugees, and their children’s children are also refugees. There is no light ahead of us,” she said.

Amid the current war, the education of children has become a top concern and priority for the Little Sisters of Nazareth.

Prior to the escalation of conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, the sisters coordinated the education of 150 Palestinian children. However, because of the war, their time and resources have been needed for emergency aid instead.

“We don’t have a school in this camp. There was a very good school that was destroyed during the [1978] war. [This school was built and funded by CNEWA-Pontifical Mission.] So, we need a lot of help to get our children into school. This is a huge, huge concern for the families, but also for us because they are our children.”

Palestinian children at the camp are rarely able to attend public school, since priority is first given to Lebanese children, and then Syrian, Sister Magda told ONE magazine. As a result, Palestinian children must turn to private schooling, which is expensive, costing around $2,500 a year, she said. CNEWA-Pontifical Mission provides tuition assistance for families in the camp.

“It’s a child’s right to go to school. It’s a child’s right to study. Here, without external help, three-quarters of our children would be on the street or would be working, especially the Palestinian children,” said Sister Magda.

Since Dbayeh is a majority-Christian camp, CNEWA-Pontifical also helps to fund efforts for the children’s spiritual nourishment and religious education.

In this file photo, Sister Magdalena Smet, P.S.N., gives a catechism class to the children of the camp, who are preparing for first Communion. (photo: Raghida Skaff)

“We saw all the children who were hanging around here. We said these children need to receive a bit of catechesis,” said Sister Magda. “They need to be prepared for their first Communion. And the children need to play, to be somewhere. Pontifical Mission helped us with some spaces to gather the children and give them catechesis.”

Read more about life at the Dbayeh camp in “At an Impasse” in the December 2024 edition of ONE, and hear more from Sister Magda in the latest episode of ONE: In Conversation.

Click here to support CNEWA’s efforts to help children cared for by priests, religious and sisters, such as Sister Magda in Dbayeh.

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