Last week we were invited to a, as we thought, dinner party at Castello di Buttrio next to Udine but it turned out that there was something very special behind it. Later that evening we watched a touching, not yet released video about preventing lost generations.
It was all about the Building Peace Foundation, established in 2014 in Italy by a group of visionary friends with the objective to improve the living conditions of people in need and danger as well as to keep their hope alive.
Since then the Building Peace Foundation has become a concrete actor in humanitarian matters. The Foundation has also joined the Clinton Global Initiative announcing a Commitment to Action to build educational centers for Syrian refugee children that have no access to education and preventing the risk of a lost generation. Starting from 2015, the American actress Sharon Stone has become Goodwill Ambassador, supporting the global fundraising campaign of the Building Peace Foundation for the Syrian refugee cause.
RE:BUILD – Let’s do something today to re-build a better tomorrow!
By using the ground “beneath your feet” the Building Peace Foundation, along with architects Pouya Khazaeli and Cameron Sinclair, developed RE:BUILD, an incredible constructive system for building safe and comfortable structures in refugee camps. The system allows the construction of temporary buildings of high quality through the use of wall panels formed with scaffolding and grids, which are then assembled and filled with gravel, sand or earth, creating well insulated interiors at a low cost.
The program is focused on making schools since they need not only education but also a safe place to grow up healthy and have their daytime activities. It can become also a house, a clinic, a canteen or simply what local needs require.
NO SCHOOL, NO DREAMS, NO HOPE, NO FUTURE. WITH RE:BUILD, WE START RE-BUILDING THEIR FUTURE.
Until now, through Re:Build, Building Peace Foundation has accommodated over 1,500 young refugee students in its educational centers, partnering with valuable Organizations on site, transferring know-how to the local communities and giving them a real hope for their future. Their projects include
- THREE REMEDIAL EDUCATIONAL CENTERS, ZA’ATARI CAMP (JORDAN)
- ARTS&CRAFTS CENTER, ZA’ATARI CAMP (JORDAN)
- EDUCATIONAL CENTER, QUEEN RANIA PARK (AMMAN)
- THE HOPE VILLAGE, MOGADISHU (SOMALIA)
Watch this presentation and this video from Queen Rania Park, Amman, Jordan
“IT IS TODAY, THAT WE CAN DECIDE WHETHER A YOUNG LIFE WILL BE SPOILED FOREVER IN A LOST GENERATION OR WHETHER WE CAN CONTRIBUTE TO KEEP THEIR HOPE ALIVE”
Dario Roustayan, Chairman of the Building Peace Foundation
What we didn’t know was the fact that Lebanon and Jordan now have the most refugees per capita in the world. The tiny nation of Lebanon hosts 1.1 million Syrian refugees, who now comprise almost one- fifth of its entire population. Jordan hosts around 630,000 and approximately one in every 13 people there is a Syrian refugee. Of 4,812,204 million Syrian refugees, 51,6% are under the age of 18 years old and 39% are under 11. Almost 1 million refugee children in school age are not getting any kind of education. Similarly, almost all their parents are unemployed: 90% of Syrian refugees in Lebanon and Jordan are in poverty.
As more than 16 million people are in need of assistance inside and outside Syria we all should think of how to draw a beautiful future for them. More to follow this autumn…
Images: buildingpeace-foundation.org, arch daily.com,
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