HE Minister Ziyad Baroud,
HE Deputy Cheikh Nadim Gemayel and HE Deputy Alain Aoun,
HE the Ambassador of Spain Mr. Juan Carlos Gafo and HE the Ambassador of Cuba Mr. Manuel Serrano,
Ladies and gentlemen,
Good evening.
On behalf of all the members and families of BASSMA, I would like to thank you all for being here tonight and supporting the organization and families of BASSMA.
The benefits of this dinner will fund our new night school program.
But before I tell you about this program, I am going to talk to you about BASSMA, its mission and its objectives.
BASSMA is a Lebanese charity organization for social development founded in 2002 and registered at the Ministry of Interior in 2003.
BASSMA believes that family is the foundation of society and that healthy families make a healthy society. We know that poverty is the main reason that leads families to fall apart and pushes their members into problems such as alcohol, drugs, domestic violence, prostitution and others.
Therefore, BASSMA aims to rehabilitate those deprived families, to support and strengthen them, and to build their capacities through a personalized long-term adoption program, allowing them to become completely independent, both financially and psychologically, and to become able to stand one day on their own feet and continue their lives on their own.
The adoption program is based on a comprehensive action plan that consists of:
- Aid on all levels: monthly food supplies, clothes, medicines, medical care, house renovation and equipment, education, job search, leisure, sports and cultural activities, etc.
- Personal weekly follow-up for each family for a period of time that can exceed five years.
- Services provided by a team of specialists such as doctors, dentists, psychologists, etc.
- Annual budget for each family.
- Quick response to family needs.
All these components are characteristics of BASSMA and its efficiency on the ground.
Today I do not want to talk only about poverty, but also about the consequences of poverty or the poverty package that is Misery.
We always confuse between the two. What is the difference? The difference is a difference of quality.
Poverty is a way of life based on simplicity, economy and contentment. It can be measured with figures and statistics.
As for misery, it cannot be measured, because its effect on people is great and its consequences are many, such as frustration, melancholy, failure, psychological collapse, loss of confidence, feeling of injustice, bitterness, revenge and of course fear.
Look around you. What do you see?
Children are suffering from their parents’ neglect, from hunger, cold, fear, having no place to play, and on top of it all, they are exposed to mistreatment, hardships and violence. Children thus suffer from mental disorders and are in need of psychotherapy in order to keep them from resenting society.
Parents left school at a young age, they had to work for a low salary, they got married young and had children they were not able to support and did not know how to raise, just as nobody knew how to raise them. So mothers resort to tranquilizers, fathers resort to alcohol and children resort to drugs, and the house becomes the scene of grief, violence and divorce. There is no study atmosphere, no family atmosphere, and not even a shadow of joy.
Is it possible that if an elderly person should undergo an operation, there is nobody to pay for it? And if an elderly person ever falls down and breaks her hip, there is nobody to care for her? Is it possible to let an elderly person die alone with nobody to take care of her?
This moral and psychological death is sometimes worse than physical death.
In this case, these people need someone to organize their life, to guide them, to show them right from wrong, to lend them a loving ear, and at the same time to financially support them and give them the necessary capacities to increase their income, to regain their self-confidence, and to learn how to face life and society with optimism and positivity.
The hardest task is for us to bring the smile back to their faces and bring joy back to their hearts.
BASSMA’s action solves the families’ problems and unites them. It changes their life and takes them from a sad miserable condition to a healthy comfortable situation for them and their children. This way, we improve societal behavior as a whole, and sweeten a bitter reality. Hence our motto: “Change the picture”.
I would like to thank all BASSMA members and volunteers who give their time and energy to change this picture, to change reality, and to change the lives of entire families
I take this occasion to present BASSMA’s most significant achievements for the year 2011:
- We worked with 100 families.
- We distributed 1000 rations of food and cleaning products.
- We distributed 310 health cards based on a partnership with the Department of Family Medicine at the Hotel Dieu Hospital.
- We provided medicines, medical care and dental treatment for families. And here I would like to thank dentist Dr. Michel Matta and family physician Dr. Marwan Zoghbi.
- We granted 50 scholarships including schoolbooks, stationery and uniforms.
- We renovated and equipped 10 houses.
- We included 500 people in BASSMA’s recreational, cultural and sports activities.
- We provided 24000 hot meals to the elderly through the Smiles Restaurants (Les Restos Sourires) that are currently available in 3 districts: Karm El Zeitoun, Gemmayze and Furn El Chubbak at the Frères School in collaboration with the Alumni association. And I would like to thank the President of the Frères Alumni Association Mr. Antoine Chamoun. As for the elderly persons who are not able to come to the restaurants because of illness or other reasons, BASSMA delivers meals to their homes.
I would like to thank all the restaurants that offer the hot meals: Metropolitan Hotel, El Tabkha restaurant, Socrates, Fiona’s, Beirut Cellar, and Allumette.
I would also like to thank those who fund BASSMA’s restaurants: Al Fardan Group, Sultan Ibrahim, Diwan Al Sultan, Lilia Sabbagh, Sky Management, Group Plus, Café Blanc, Karam restaurant, Al Falamanki, BO18 Classic, and Sunflower.
I would also like to thank the Said Feiha establishment that provided meals for the whole month of December through Mrs. Elham Freiha.
And special thanks to the ladies who are volunteering in the Smiles restaurants and serving the elderly with all their hearts.
- KIDSWAP
We included around 100 students from IC and Jamhour in BASSMA’s social activities that aim at raising awareness on poverty and leading youth to become committed citizens.
- As for our new program, the night schools:
We noted that a high rate of public school students are failing the “Brevet” official exam because of the low academic level, so they drop out of school and repeat their parents’ scenario, the poverty scenario. BASSMA aims at breaking this poverty circle and leading those students to university. We have thus organized the night school program with the collaboration of a select team of private school teachers. And after only three months of the launch of the program in April 2011, the result was: 78 % success rate among participants from grades 3 to 9, and 91% success rate in the “Brevet” official exam. This brilliant result led us to proceed with this program on a regular basis, especially next year, thanks to you and thanks to this event.
Poverty in Lebanon cannot be the responsibility of one group or one organization; poverty is a shared responsibility and, as Lebanese citizens, our role is to be active in our environment and to refuse to see families that are drowning in despair without taking action.
BASSMA is not independent from society. BASSMA comes from society and acts for society; we serve as a link between you who wish to help families in need and do not always know where and how, and families who do not know who to resort to. We offer you an organized and fair framework to distribute aid and donations.
Let us put our hands together to build the society of smiles that we all aspire to.
Help us help them!
Help us provide children with all their needs in terms of milk, diapers, medicines, vaccines, etc.,
Help us provide children with continuous education,
Help us save the youth from the risks of delinquency,
Help us stand by each mother who can no longer bear the burden of poverty,
Help us help those fathers who drown in worries and despair because they are unable to accomplish their duties towards their families,
Help us provide the elderly with their basic needs such as heaters and hot water for the winter, and stand by their side and accompany them in all phases.
Each one of you can contribute what they can,
You can, for instance, adopt a family starting form 20 $ per month.
You can also take part in BASSMA’s Christmas program “Make a Christmas Wish Come True” and choose to buy a person or a family the gifts they have asked for. You can see the list of gifts on our Facebook page or on BASSMA’s website www.bassma.org.
As Victor Hugo once said, we do not just want to help the miserable; we want to suppress misery.
Thank you all for your presence and your continuous support. Have a pleasant evening.
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