Mennonite
Central
Committee

Lebanese Muslim organization serves the poor

Tim Shenk
February 2, 2006

When Fatima Sabra was 6, her mother died and her father took her to an orphanage in this city because he couldn't raise her alone.

Orphanage

The Lebanese Civil War was raging, as Israeli and Syrian armies and rival Lebanese militias fought for control of the country. Sabra's mother died of a heart condition that could not be treated because of the war. The orphanage her father took her to became her home for more than a decade, and the staff became her family.

Today Sabra is 30 years old, recently married, and working as a nurse in the orphanage where she grew up. The orphanage is part of the Imam Sadr Foundation, a Shiite Muslim organization that assists orphans, low-income women and other people in need in southern Lebanon regardless of their religion. Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) supports the foundation by sponsoring management training for its staff.

"I appreciate the work of the foundation so much," she says. "If the foundation did not exist, what would happen to people like me?"

About 60 girls now live at the orphanage. Some were orphaned during the Lebanese Civil War, which ended in 1990. Others are unable to live with their families because of poverty, domestic violence or other problems.

Poverty

Mohamad Bassam, director of assessment at the Imam Sadr Foundation, says that the civil war and its aftermath are responsible for many problems in Lebanon today. Israeli troops continued to occupy parts of southern Lebanon for a decade after the war, and Syrian troops occupied much of the country until 2005.

"The main problem now is poverty," Bassam says. "Here in the south, these years of (Israeli) occupation have not only destroyed the economy but also the social fabric of the communities."

Imam Sadr Foundation

In addition to the orphanage, Imam Sadr Foundation operates a girls' school, a nursing school, a vocational training program for women and other social services.

The foundation was started in the 1960s by Imam Musa al-Sadr, a Shiite Muslim religious leader who was concerned about the widespread poverty of Lebanon's Shiite population.

Al-Sadr also worked to make peace between Lebanon's Muslim and Christian communities, who often ended up on opposite sides of the Lebanese Civil War.

Shortly after starting the foundation, al-Sadr asked his sister, Rabab al-Sadr Sharafaldein, to manage it, and she continues to serve as its president.

Sabra says that Sharafaldein became like a mother to her after she came to the orphanage as a 6-year-old girl.

"I look at Rabab as a mother who took my hand when I was a child and made a plan for my life," Sabra says. "Rabab is my role model."

When Sabra and her husband got engaged, his family asked Sharafaldein for permission — a traditional request that is typically made to a bride's parents.

 

MCC in Lebanon