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Post date: Oct 12, 2016 11:12:46 AM
Recently I had the opportunity to travel with my husband's family to their hometown of Beirut, Lebanon. As excited as I was to be exploring a new country, going to such a conflicted place simply for touristic enjoyment didn't feel quite right. Through the advice of an American friend who works for the Department of State I was introduced to an amazing non-profit organisation called Home of Hope, which serves misfortunate, abused, abandoned, and orphaned children in Lebanon. Many of them are refugee street children from Syria, Jordan, Palestine, and the surrounding areas who are forced, usually by their family or child labor ringleaders, to beg or steal in order to bring in money. Others, meanwhile, come from even more heart-rending situations such as sex trafficking, drug experimentation, and even human organ trafficking.
When I learned about the home's mission of creating a nurturing, encouraging, and helpful environment to first help the children recover from the traumatic events which they have passed through; and second, to educate and raise the children to be intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually prepared to face an increasingly biased future I was immediately drawn to offer any help I could.
Upon contacting the home and sharing a bit about myself it became apparent that the best way I could serve these vulnerable young people was through diffusing MyBnk's financial education expertise; something the school staff had few resources and little confidence to take on themselves. With the support of Guy, Sharan, and senior leadership I worked to adapt some of MyBnk's existing materials to suit the needs of the students, many of whom cannot read nor write, and have never attended formal school.
Since most of the children at the home do not have papers it will be nearly impossible for them to find work, housing, open a bank account, or access state benefits the way you and I could as documented citizens. For those reasons I chose to focus my delivery on finding creative and enterprising means to earn money in addition to our tried and true activities that are applicable worldwide such as Needs vs. Wants, Budgeting, and the Shopping Challenge. Several of the Sporty Money Twist activities proved extremely impactful as well thanks to their versatility outside of the traditional classroom setting.
Working with the YP for 15 hours over 3 days proved to be most memorable experience of my holiday and I'm very grateful that MyBnk supported me in this endeavour. The students were so genuinely appreciative of the time and efforts spent in preparing them with strategies for financial wellness in the future. Check out the link below for some photos; their smiling faces say it all...
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