To help some of the one million displaced people in Lebanon due to the consistent Israeli attacks on their villages and towns, an Armenian school, one of many that are trying to help these people, is helping make this experience a little bit easier for these unfortunate families. In conjunction with UNHCR and Middle East Council of Churches, Djemaran School has been turned into a temporary safe haven, where 800 people, half of whom are kids, have the bare necessities provided for them; three small meals a day. A temporary infirmary has been set up next to the school where volunteer doctors who are on call 24 hours a day come in and make sure that any injuries which were sustained during the bombings have been taken care of, and that any new infections are healing. This minimal medical care is provided for free. There are a couple of tv's and radios where the news is constantly being played. For a bed, the refugees have any space they can find on the floor in the school classrooms. There are no fans and no real sanitation in these very confined spaces, which have many people packed each. The children are not able to take regular showers. The sanitation is a real problem because the lack of cleanliness acts as a hotbed for all sorts of illnesses.

What I do is go in every day for a couple of hours and help add some sort of structure to the lives of the children, lives which have been permanently marked by the sudden displacement. I teach English to a group of 20 children, ages ranging three and a half to twelve. I've taken in some notebooks, coloured pens and pencils, some erasers and pencils since they have literally nothing. Every day when i go in, the kids swarm around me, eagerly awaiting learning time! These kids are constantly surrounded by the news and the media, day in day out, so lessons, activities and sports are a good outlet for them, something different for them to do. I've noticed over the weeks how they've bonded so much. They are helpful towards each other, knowing that they're all in this together. They're kids though, perhaps they don't realise the intensity of the situation, although they are very aware of what is going on (in fact they often fill me in on all sorts of details of what tactics the two sides are using, how houses are being bombed etc.), and so they continue as kids do - the difference being that these kids are scarred with this trauma for the rest of their lives.

What Gemaran, UNHCR and MECC hope to do is help all these refugees find better housing and help them get back on their feet again. For the time being, they are just there, hoping, against all odds, that they will return to some sort of a normal life routine. --G.