Become a Partner

Destitute children face many challenges in their studies, as they live in rundown houses where they find it difficult to study, knowing that they are too small, cold, and lack of hygiene. Plus, parental conflicts and shouting are not appropriate for concentration and academic progress.

Knowing that Education is the building block of our mission, BASSMA strives for strengthening the learning process, thus developing a “Night School” that offers academic support to children struggling in school, helping them succeed in academic year, by improving their access to the following for free:

1- Registration fees

2- Adequate material: School books, School supplies and full material

3- 200 intensive courses in all subjects (Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, French and Arabic)

4- Homogeneous and small groups

5- Professional and experienced teachers

6- Supervisors

7- Personalized psychological follow-up

8- Water, juice and nutritional snacks

9- A safe, peaceful, clean, warm and healthy environment where they can truly concentrate and study properly

10- A secure means of transportation, as BASSMA's bus picks up the children from their schools and drive them back home after the courses.

The objective of the “School for Life” Program is:

1- To develop the skills and capacities of students who face learning difficulties at school, and bridge their accrued learning gaps

2- To allow participating students to succeed their school year, based on strong foundations, and especially the students who have official exams (Brevet).

By focusing on tutoring a targeted group of young students in difficulty, BASSMA is developing a very fundamental and powerful instrument which can enable individuals to break the cycle of poverty, and help them escape from delinquency.

On the short-term, this program will help underprivileged children succeed their academic year. On the long run, it will transform the students’ lives because, as Nelson Mandela once said, “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world”.

BASSMA's mission is to empower the most deprived families to reach self-sufficiency through a Long-Term Personalized All-Inclusive Rehabilitation Program.

BASSMA’s Comprehensive Empowerment program consists of a process to help families in crisis, by putting in place a plan of action with clear objectives that will enhance the strengths of the family and help resolve their different issues.

A collaborative decision making process is developed and is coordinated by a team of professionals; it engages all relevant parties, such as immediate and extended family members, social workers, psychologists, doctors, etc.

The final objective is to help the family reach financial, social and psychological independence.

“By rehabilitation, we mean adopting and following-up on deprived families for a period of time varying between one and five years depending on their needs.

We work with specialists on developing an action plan aiming to assist the families and enable them to redress their situation and become morally and financially autonomous.

During this period, we also provide them with their essential daily needs: from clothing, food supplies, medicines, medical care and house restorations, to ensuring the continuity of school enrolment and organizing trips and outings.

Rehabilitation consists of three main components: Education, Finding job opportunities

and most importantly, building a personal relationship with the families; this is precisely where the importance of BASSMA lies and this is what characterizes our association.

When a family becomes strong enough and ready to accept the idea of integrating a job, we start providing them with professional trainings. And the last step is to find a job for these persons and it comes as a consecration of our efforts.

After ten years of field action, we have seen the concrete results and the difference BASSMA has visibly made in the life of the rehabilitated families: Before and After BASSMA. This motivates us to go forward and to find drastic solutions to social despair, unemployment and poverty in Lebanon”.

From the speech of BASSMA’s president during 2010 Annual Dinner.

Family Empowerment All-Inclusive Program

BASSMA aims to support and rehabilitate families in need through the following programs and services: 

Food for All Feed the Hungry

Clothes for All Dignity Cloth

Health Care Promise to Heal

Education for All Happy Studies

Medical Insurance Road to Survival

House Renovation Home Sweet Home

Employment Fighting Joblessness

Mental Health Solutions Psychology & Pathology

Personalized Approach One-to-One Relationship

Activities & Outings Joyful Hearts

Empowerment Capacity Building

Tutoring Teach a Child

Night School School for Life

Career Orientation & Scholarships Growing Hopes

Trainings & Internships Fighting Joblessness

Protection Saving Innocence

Development Activities Youths Club

Hot Meals Smiles Restaurants

Home-Delivered Meals Dinner Delivery

Elderly Care Hearts at Home

Deprived families and abandoned elderly don’t have enough clothes to stay warm during a chilly winter, nor decent clothes to live in dignity among other people in their community.

We bridge the gap by collecting, throughout the year, used and new clothes, shoes, bags, and other necessary accessories, and distributing them to needy persons of all age groups, making sure that all family members receive appropriate clothes for each season.

Moreover, we organize regular Clothes Fairs offering a large amount of clothes, shoes, gadgets, toys, and other items, and we invite all destitute families from the neighborhood to benefit from the displayed items.

Family members and abandoned elderly are thrilled to find beautiful items of their choice!

Clothes do more than just keep people warm. They dress them with dignity.

BASSMA’s main objective is to help families become self-sufficient.

Therefore, BASSMA’s Employment Services consists of three projects, which together make BASSMA’s main goal for the families possible: financial stability and independence!

1- Training Programs

BASSMA provides regular workshops and professional trainings for disadvantaged people in order to sharpen their knowledge and skills. These innovative training programs aim to integrate disadvantaged youth into the job market, while improving the participants’ professional communication skills, work readiness, and organizational and office skills. With these new capabilities, participants are referred to BASSMA’s Job Matching services in order to find employment and take a step in the right direction.

2. Job Matching

BASSMA’s employment office facilitates the contact between employers and job seekers, while actively searching for work opportunities.

BASSMA helps family members seeking a job with the drafting of their CV, preparing for interviews, organizing job seminars, transportation, etc.

3- Smiles Workshops

The main objective of the Smiles Workshops is to help needy women who lack professional qualifications become productive by working at home without having to leave their children.

The objectives of the workshops are the following:

- To ensure a means of subsistence to poverty-stricken families, thus improving their standards of living

- To improve the morale of these individuals so that they can regain, little by little, a taste for life by feeling that they are productive and useful members of society

- To raise awareness in society about the problem of poverty by selling the products that are crafted under the BASSMA label, thus allowing BASSMA to touch a larger number of people.

These crafts are sold at various fundraising opportunities throughout the year, such as exhibitions and fairs.

Deprived families are battling daily to meet the basic needs necessary for their survival. They tend to forget the simple pleasures of life, and can’t even afford to go to the beach, visit a cultural site, or simply take a trip to the mountains.

Therefore, BASSMA organizes regular cultural activities and outings that allow families to leave their troubles aside and relax for an entire memorable day.

Past outings have included visits to the Jeita Grotto, the Taanayel forest, the ruins of Aanjar, the port of Byblos, the columns of Baalbeck, etc.

Destitute groups of populations lack of the most basic health care, and they barely manage to survive on their own, especially the elderly who suffer from old age and illness in the absence of a public pension fund in Lebanon.

Therefore, BASSMA handles all primary, secondary and tertiary Health Care to insure a better lifestyle and improved life conditions, while offering:

- Diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of all kind of diseases, illnesses, injuries in the following fields: medicine, optometry, dentistry, nursing, pharmacy, and allied health.

- Psychological and psychiatric follow-up and treatment through the Mental Health program

Therefore, family members and elderly under BASSMA care benefit from the following services, free of charge:

- Doctors’ consultations and Medical Examinations

- Radiology and Medical Imaging

- Hospitalization and minor and major chirurgical interventions

- Chronic Treatment

- Medicines and Medical supplies (diapers, etc.)

- Dental care, operations and false teeth

- Psychological and Psychiatric follow-up and Treatment

Destitute families and abandoned elderly live in rundown houses, at the mercy of the rain, wind and storms.

The bad conditions affect particularly their health whereas they suffer continuously from cold and pneumonia, etc...

BASSMA works throughout the year to renovate the rundown homes of deprived families and elderly people, making sure that they become healthy places to live in.

It includes the following services:

- Rebuild of the basic infrastructure

- Reparations and Restorations

- Painting, cleaning, and pesticides

- Refurbishments, from carpets and couches to household appliances, and other necessary equipment

- Payment of Rent, Electricity and Water Bills

The renovation project is an important component of BASSMA's family rehabilitation program, since it guarantees security and safety for a stable family life.

BASSMA’s refrigerated Smile Bus delivers weekly cooked meals to all the elderly who lack resources and are unable to attend the Smiles Restaurants either because of illness or old age.

BASSMA provides those people with much-needed nourishing meals, thus ensuring that they never feel hungry or abandoned by society.

Help us deliver Meals and Smiles all around!

BASSMA aims at improving the quality of life of Elderly people in Lebanon by achieving the following:

- Providing them with cooked meals through the Smiles Restaurants & Dinner Delivery Program programs

- Providing them with warm clothes, bed covers, towels, sheets and all other necessary accessories through the Clothes for All program

- Providing them with chronic medicines, walkers, water beds, diapers, walking canes, etc. through the Health Care program

- Financing their entire medical needs, including operations as cataract, femoral neck fractures, etc through the Health Care program

- Insuring sets of false teeth to them through the Health Care program

- Renovating their run-down houses, cleaning and refurbishing them, from carpets and heaters to fridges and ovens, and other necessary equipment through the House Renovation program

- Financing their rent, electricity and water bills, etc. through the House Renovation program

- Organizing regular recreational activities and outings all year-long through the Activities & Outings program

- Giving them the love and attention every human being deserves through the Personalized Approach program

Since many of the elderly are abandoned by their families, our volunteers' visits and specialized activities help them live in dignity.

Let's accompany the elderly and help them live with decency...

Deprived families face common challenges in covering the fees of school tuitions, schoolbooks and supplies.

Therefore, BASSMA strives to strengthen Education and guarantees school enrollment, while increasing the chances of academic success.

BASSMA provides the children with the following:

- Nurseries, Schools and Universities fees

- School Books, Supplies and Materials

- School Uniforms and Bags

-Tutoring Lessons

- Transportation

BASSMA’s added value is found in the personalized approach with each and every person:

BASSMA’s team of professionals organizes weekly visits to the families, assuring attention to all kind of problems affecting its equilibrium. We try our best to resolve them, be they material, financial, familial or psychological, therefore maintaining a solid bond with the families.

- Attention to each assisted family member.

- Special Assistance: on special occasions such as weddings, baby deliveries, funerals, etc.

“They need a shoulder to cry on, an attentive ear, a kind smile and a loving and reassuring heart, in order to regain their self-confidence and start facing society and life with confidence and optimism”.

Taken from the speech of BASSMA’s president during the 2010 Annual Dinner.

Help us Give Hope to Destitute Families!

Youths are the future of Lebanon, and are the first to suffer when a family faces financial or social tensions.

Therefore, BASSMA launched the Youth Development Program, which aims to foster the intellectual and creative growth of the youths.

Activities of BASSMA’s “Youth Club” include the following:

- Art and Music workshops (drawing, painting, handcrafting, instruments familiarity, etc.)

- Entertainment and Educational activities and outings (movies, concerts, theater, etc.)

- Prevention Sessions about many topics, such as Drugs, Health and hygiene, etc.

- Sports activities, such as football

They allow the children from disadvantaged backgrounds to gather in a relaxing environment every weekend, to interact, learn, and partake in recreational activities.

These regular activities have the following objectives:

1. To detect Youths’ talents and develop them

2. To allow them to interact and enjoy themselves in a safe setting

3. To develop their artistic sensitivity and allow them to be productive by creating hand-made products

4. To help them escape misery through Art and Sports

5. To prevent and reduce the rate of delinquency

This club is an alternative for children who cannot afford to pay for extracurricular activities; it prevents them from wandering aimlessly on the streets.

Poverty is a psychological state, not just an economic condition.

For Adults

“My days are filled with hunger and thoughts of budgeting. Am I a victim or a parasite?”

In addition to all the structural barriers that prevent even determined poor people from escaping poverty, there may be another, deeper, and considerably more disturbing barrier: Poverty may reduce free will, making it even harder for the poor to escape their circumstances.

All of this suggests that we need to rethink our approaches to poverty reduction. Many of our current anti-poverty efforts focus on access to health, educational, agricultural, and financial services. Now, it seems, we need to start treating willpower as a scarce and important resource as well. Poverty doesn’t simply reduce freedom by constraining an individual’s choices, but that it may actually alter the nature of freedom by reducing an individual’s willpower.

One of the most insidious effects of living in high-poverty, chronically disadvantaged neighborhoods is the severe damage these areas have on residents’ mental and emotional health. New research shows that poverty imposes a psychological burden so great that the poor are left with little mental “bandwidth” with which to perform everyday tasks.

The constant anxiety and stress resulting from witnessing and experiencing trauma and violence in distressed neighborhoods, negotiating the sacrifices and trade-offs caused by food insecurity, living in unstable housing conditions, struggling to pay bills, and dealing with numerous other worries burn up cognitive capacity that could otherwise be used for productive activities like navigating public assistance systems, providing for an entire family on a limited budget, and helping children with schoolwork.

For children

The long-term mental health effects of poverty are even more alarming. In addition to occupying cognitive resources needed for education (the clearest path out of poverty), poverty is toxic to children. Persistent stress and exposure to trauma trigger harmful stress hormones that permanently affect children’s brain development and even their genes. The damage to childhood development is so severe that medical professionals now describe the early effects of poverty as a childhood disease.

BASSMA is offering free psychological follow-up to all family members that need it, and also psychiatric follow-up and medicines when needed.

Bringing mental health services to poor communities

Because of the devastating cognitive effects of poverty on both adults and children, clinical mental health services are a central component of BASSMA’s Comprehensive Empowerment Program.

BASSMA has developed an intensive psychological and psychiatric follow-up and treatment model for children and adults suffering from concentrated poverty, chronic violence, and low levels of trust and social cohesion. BASSMA’s coordinated and comprehensive intervention aims to stabilize whole families and improve a range of educational, health, and employment outcomes.

“Throughout our field experience, we have found that 90% of the people under BASSMA’s care are on analgesics, and that the majority resist to the idea of working because they have lost their self-confidence and they don’t feel up to the responsibilities. These psychological problems are the greatest challenge facing BASSMA’s Family Empowerment program, because most of family members we are supporting are afraid to face society. This is the summit of despair. In such case, a box of food is not enough. Neither medicines nor money… What these people really need is personal and psychological follow-up for a certain period. They need a shoulder to cry on, an attentive ear, a kind smile and a loving and reassuring heart... in order to regain their self-confidence and to start facing society and life with confidence and optimism”.

Taken from the speech of BASSMA’s president, during the 2010 Annual Dinner.

Help us End Social Exclusion!

In destitute neighborhoods, BASSMA often meets abused children and women.

Therefore, BASSMA’s professional team immediately puts in place an Emergency Plan of Action to save the victims from their situation, and find concrete solutions that suits all family members.

BASSMA’s Protection and Social Reintegration of the Victims consists in:

1- Detecting all forms of child and woman abuse

2- Providing Counseling and Orientation

3- Providing Parental Guidance

4- Providing psychological and psychiatric follow-up

5- Coordinating with legal entities and doing the necessary follow-up to save the victims

6- Ensuring Safe and Secure living conditions, and shelters if needed, to the victims

Help us Stop Child and Woman Abuse!

Given that most deprived families in Lebanon do not have access to social security coverage or private insurance, BASSMA provides yearly Medical insurance for BASSMA’s mothers, covering all emergencies and hospitalization.

In order to avoid academic failures and shortfalls, BASSMA provides intensive private tutorials to children in need, covering different academic subjects. Classes are given by professional teachers, given that in most families the parents only have basic education and are not capable of supervising their kids or helping them with their studies.

We help BASSMA’s children and their parents to discover their potential and professional orientation, through a daily follow-up of their academic results, their talents, etc. BASSMA makes sure to send kids with particular talents or professional orientations to vocational schools, universities and centers to put them on the right track and invest in their potential.

BASSMA seeks to raise individual awareness on poverty, a notion that remains very abstract for many people. We promote voluntary work and provide volunteering opportunities to people who wish to get involved, by giving them the chance to interact and provide aid to families in need and to the abandoned elderly.

BASSMA also seeks to raise awareness through media campaigns, billboards, and advertisements, which always carry the objective of sensitizing people towards poverty and the reality of deprived families.

As part of our “Community Service Program”, BASSMA has established a partnership with a number of schools: International College, Notre Dame de Jamhour, Nazareth and City International School and Frères Gemmayzeh This program aims at raising awareness on poverty among students, by involving them in BASSMA’s work: in first part, the students attend presentations on the role and mission of BASSMA and on the issue of poverty and the social problems it leads to; in second part, they get involved in BASSMA’s work by volunteering in one or more of its different programs or activities such as house renovations, food distribution, etc. The aim is for students to become aware of their responsibility as citizens towards the social issues in their country.

Every year, BASSMA takes part in the different NGO fairs taking place in universities. We set up a stand for BASSMA and give a presentation session outlining our mission to interested students. By participating in these fairs, we aim to raise awareness and mobilize Lebanese youth to get involved and become active members of their society through volunteer work. A number of universities such as LAU, AUB, and ESIB are collaborating with BASSMA as part of their community service course.

Many companies, hotels, and banks in Lebanon have launched a Corporate Social Responsibility program, and are seeking to raise awareness on social issues among their employees by partnering with local NGOs and involving their employees in social work. BASSMA is open to different kinds of collaboration with the private sector on its different programs such as House Renovation, Food for All, Smiles Restaurants, etc.

BASSMA’s ultimate goal is to build a healthy society and reduce poverty. We thus conduct media campaigns and schedule regular media appearances, in addition to magazine and newspaper ads, TV ads, and billboards in order to reach a large number of citizens.