HAIGAZIAN STUDENTS HELP REFUGEES

Haigazian University, Lebanon
Aug. 5, 2006

>From the very first day of the July 2006 war, Student Life officers
started contemplating ways to have their share in ameliorating the
hardships the country faced.

Obviously student brotherly help could not proceed unless the security
situation allowed. Plans were put down, several brainstorming sessions
were held, all concluded with the determination of extending a
helping hand.

Preliminary work began; students were contacted to check about the
whereabouts and conditions of HU students of the bombed areas. Others
were asked about their availability for the university-sponsored
philanthropic work. A long list of volunteer students was prepared.

HU students from the university neighborhood checked in and offered
their assistance and help too.

Soon refugees started to pour into the Armenian Evangelical School,
next to the university. Student volunteers were called to an emergency
meeting. Plans were drawn, and social outreach assistance was put into
action in the form of entertaining the forty refugee kids of those 30
families who had taken refuge in the neighboring school, and extend
help to their parents and elderly in trying to relieve their hardship
and establish a minimum living conditions in collaboration with the
Armenian Evangelical Outreach Project coordinator, Maria Bakalian.

Now one can come across the students playing football or basketball
or table tennis with the kids. Others are coloring figures or drawing
pictures with watercolor paint.

By the end of the day the students gather at the Student Lounge,
brief on their daily activity, assess it and plan for the next day.

Apart from this university-sponsored project, large numbers of
Haigazian University students have volunteered in social outreach
centers at their residential areas.