teachers on the same types of issues so that the message will be consistent throughout the program. Between 150 and 200 children will attend the full ten sessions, while the same number of children will attend only five sessions during the project and an additional five sessions post survey. “The only way to know whether the intervention is working is to have a group of kids that is exactly the same, in the same context, that doesn’t get this intervention,” Afifi explained.

The sessions are conducted using a variety of tools—play, role play, dialogue, discussion, drawing, and coloring—and are organized according to a manual that details the objectives and activities. The manual is updated as new issues arise. The ultimate goal is to produce a manual that can be widely used as an educational tool by schools, NGOs, and others working with children who live in environments in which the daily pressures of life can seriously affect their mental health.

The sessions are run by six facilitators, all university graduates, half of them from AUB, aided by some 23 youth mentors from the community. Fifteen percent of the sessions are evaluated by an observer and at the end of every session, the children fill out their own assessment using a series of smiley faces. MainGate attended Session 18, during which the lively youngsters were encouraged to think ahead to the future to consider what they would like to be when they grew up. They explored the inter-relationship between mind, body, and spirit and then went on to capture these thoughts in drawings.

As one session finished and another started, a shy young boy approached the facilitator, Hala Fuleihan. He was clutching a plastic bag and was eager to get her undivided attention away from the rest of the group. Reaching into the bag, he proudly presented her first with a hand made ring, then a pen holder, complete with pen, ingeniously fashioned from a soft drink can covered with burlap and beads, and finally a bracelet that matched the ring. His pride in his gifts was made all the more poignant by the knowledge that the boy had often talked of wanting to commit suicide to escape the oppression of his life in the camp. Now the sessions had given him something to look forward to.

Heba Salem, facilitator and Rima Afifi’s research assistant, says, “I am overwhelmed by their [the children’s] generosity. Their goodness and innocence pushes you forward. We don’t force anything onto the kids; the problems have to arise from within them so when we talk about problems with the schools and the community, we ask them to discuss the things that they see as positive and negative. We also have games to get the message across; for example, the individual’s role within the community. There is a hula hoop game where you have to hold up the ring with one finger. You start off with five people and you gradually remove them until you have one person and that person cannot hold up the ring with one finger, so it shows how important it is to understand the concept of the individual and the community. . . Sometimes we do not think we are having an impact, and then we find out they are actually trying to apply what we discussed, like the two brothers who usually fight over TV programs. Now they tell us they discuss between themselves and work out a system of who watches what when.”

As the weeks go by, the team’s commitment to the project grows ever stronger, even as the work load increases. For Heba Salem, it has strengthened her resolve to pursue her master’s degree and work with disadvantaged children. Among the mentors, it has inspired some to complete their schooling, others to apply to university, and two to move on to MPH programs. Many of the parents cannot believe how much the children have changed in attitude, and they too are beginning to learn how to deal with their children in new ways.

“It is very enriching, the changes we are seeing in everybody,” says Afifi. “The more I am in it, the more I wonder if we are going to be able to show change quantitatively. I know we are changing things but I do not know if we are going to be able to make enough change or the type of change that can be measured by a survey instrument. . . . We are starting to think about how we can gather more qualitative data so we are talking to parents, asking what is the change that you see in these kids. We talk to the kids; we talk to the mentors, just in case we are not able to show statistically significant differences. I know we are making an impact, I just need to show it.”

Sari Hanafi, associate professor of sociology, is also determined to have an impact. One of the first to respond to the crisis in the Nahr el Bared Camp in May 2008, Hanafi co-founded the Popular Committee for the Reconstruction of Nahr el Bared and played a major role in mediating between the community and the outside world. An expert on conditions in Palestinian camps, Hanafi is research director for the Program on Policy and Governance in Palestinian Refugee Camps in the Middle East, run jointly by AUB’s Issam Fares Institute and the Center for Behavioral Research. The program, bringing together researchers, government officials, and people who work in NGOs, is working to generate rigorous analysis and policy recommendations on Palestinian camps in the Middle East.

In a research project entitled “Modes of Governance in the Palestinian Refugee Camps of Lebanon, Syria and the Palestinian Territory,” Hanafi explores the relationship between power, sovereignty, and space: How is the space politically organized? Who are the moral entrepreneurs? How have disputes over land/properties/businesses been settled? How are problems on the personal and neighborhood levels resolved? How are disputes settled legally? How have disputes between camp dwellers and those outside the camps been settled?

In particular, Hanafi wants to explore the reasons why violence erupted in the camps in Lebanon and not in Jordan or Syria. His project formulates the hypothesis that for 60 years the refugee camps in the Palestinian Territory and in Lebanon have been treated as “spaces of exception” and an experimental laboratory for control and surveillance. Based on his initial analysis and his work in Nahr al Bared, Hanafi has concluded that the Lebanese camps represent “the epitome of the failed state.” “We learned that there is very fragmented leadership, a very weak popular committee leaving space for the emergence of new leaders including imams who are becoming more and more influential. In the case of Fatah al Islam, the imams in some mosques played an important role in pushing the population to accept Fatah al Islam. The poverty and the camps as spaces of exception provide fertile terrain for these groups to be accommodated. . . When the state leaves these spaces to their own fate, this is the result.”

The answer, Hanafi insists, is more and better integration. “You cannot expect to go to France, Canada, or Australia and enjoy all those privileges and security, right there, and not consider this for others. You cannot treat someone who has been living in Lebanon for three generations like say, Iraqi refugees. It is more and more a situation that if you do not give the Palestinians options, then you will bear the consequences. You have to allow the Palestinians access to the labor market, to run businesses, and to enter professions. This is very important.”

Providing this access will lead to some unexpected results. Among the many findings of a study entitled “Paid Work and Domestic Labor in Disadvantaged Communities on the Outskirts of Beirut,” Rima Habib from the Faculty of Health Sciences found that out of the three communities studied in Nabaa, Hay el Sellom, and Bourj al Barajneh Camps, it was in Bourj al Barajneh that women were least supported because men had restricted access to paid work. In a section entitled, “Housework and Paid Work for Men,” Habib writes: “In general our findings agree with the theory that men feel more comfortable ‘helping out’ with the housework when they are employed and contributing to the household income, because their traditional masculine status is not threatened, whereas non-earner men contribute less to housework as a means of asserting their traditional gender role.”

In a second study of Bourj al Barajneh—“Harboring Illnesses”—on the association between disease and living conditions in a Palestinian refugee camp, Habib writes, “Our study revealed an association between the poor housing conditions and the presence of illness in a Palestinian refugee camp on the outskirts of Beirut.

The prevailing poor housing conditions in Bourj al Barajneh Camp coupled with low income jobs among Palestinian refugees, call for immediate action to ensure sustainable living conditions.” Habib went on to highlight the potential for change with the 2005 Lebanese government memorandum on refugee labor rights allowing Palestinians born and registered in Lebanon to work in jobs that do not require official registration in a syndicate.

As the first guest speaker at the inauguration of the Issam Fares Program on Policy and Governance in Palestinian Refugee Camps in February 2008, UNRWA Commissioner General Karen AbuZayd called for the full implementation of the 2005 memorandum. She also urged states hosting Palestinian refugees to recognize their responsibility for governing the camps according to international law. Later in the year, in the wake of the Nahr al Bared conflict, both AbuZayd and Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora praised the work of AUB and the Nahr el Bared Relief Campaign.

Research at AUB into improving the lives of Palestinians is also ongoing through the work of other Issam Fares fellows and affiliates, in student research projects, and in volunteer programs in the camps that AUB professors and students organize and staff (see page 26).

—M.A.