Dear friends,
Claude is only 12 years old, but he will never forget the last months of his life. In his shantytown of Karantina, next to the port of Beirut, he looks at the cracked walls of his bedroom. Since August 4th, his nights are filled with the nightmare of his father running to find a hospital to save his torn ear. To chase away this unbearable image, he thinks of the hunger that grips him, like most of his friends in Lebanon where nearly 60% of the population lives below the poverty line.
Claude, like hundreds of Lebanese children, has just received his food parcel brought by the Mission Enfance teams. But his future is still precarious...
It is thanks to education, that at Christmas time, we will really be able to save Claude. By renovating the eighteen classrooms of his Saint Charles school devastated by the explosion. He will be able to follow his schooling and get closer to his friends and teachers. And return to the beginning of normality...
In recent months, our association has been tirelessly providing emergency support to children confined in fragile states unable to support their population in the face of the global pandemic. Colombia, Armenia, Lebanon, Ethiopia, Burkina Faso, Laos, Iraq, everywhere the cries of families alerted us. Our responses, thanks to the interventions of our local coordinators, were alimentary or financial. Today, in many areas, this dramatic situation is deteriorating. Confinement, economic crises, natural or human disasters, tragic wars... Only your solidarity will guarantee the stability of the victims.
Since the resumption of the conflict with Azerbaijan on 27 September, Armenia has been facing a massive arrival of its brothers and sisters from Nagorno-Karabakh. "As soon as the Azeri bombs destroyed our house," says Gnarik, a mother of three, "we set off for Armenia. In the rush, we didn't take anything with us". Armenian generosity was immediately organised. The families, though destitute, opened their doors to the karabaghti children. But as winter approaches, these young refugees are cold. Thanks to our active presence for 28 years in this country, we have been able to set up with our coordinator, Arminé, the supply of warm clothes to the children. While waiting for their return, we carry out food distributions to the host families. Because on Christmas Eve, the plates of each of these refugee children have to be filled up .
The upheavals of the year 2020 will have particularly affected the children in our fields of intervention. The reliability of our teams, some of them have been working with us for nearly 30 years, their commitment which has never been contradicted, the care and the requirement that we put to distribute our relief in person, all these humanitarian actions give Mission Enfance an expertise which allows it to intervene with speed and efficiency in order to give hope to the most destitute of our planet.
In 2020 also, 15.000 pupils have benefited from the new schools and high schools we have built for them in Laos, Afghanistan, Iraqi Kurdistan, Burkina Faso... In our particularly disturbed world, the ultimate projection we can foresee for children in distress remains school.
Today the 100.000 children we have helped this year wish you a very Merry Christmas. They know that without your humanity, they could no longer dream, even of their schooling. For Christmas, with Mission Enfance, don't forget them !
Receive, Dear Friends, all my wishes for a merry Christmas with your loved ones !
Domitille Lagourgue
Director of Mission Enfance
