“If you are planning for a year, sow rice; if you are planning for a decade, plant trees; if you are planning for a lifetime, educate people” – Chinese Proverb

Summary

The Lebanon Evangelical School for Boys and Girls, Loueizeh, Lebanon is calling on all friends to donate/lend money so that we can move forward. Any money donated will be paid back eventually. We just need to move forward now and there are three projects where your help can make a massive difference.

Full Story

I am appealing today to all friends of the Lebanon Evangelical School for Boys and Girls, whether they be present parents, ex-students, present students or just people who know someone whose life have been affected by the school. I had always planned to write today, Wednesday 5th August 2020, but I never thought that it would be the day after the biggest explosion Lebanon has ever seen. It is a dark day here. A huge number of families are starting their day without a loved one or with a close relative in hospital. Because of the explosion you know we are in a desperate situation here in Lebanon at the moment but the explosion and COVID-19 are not our biggest problem.

The biggest problem is financial. The first thing I thought when I saw the destruction is how are the people going to find the dollars to pay for all the glass they need to put their homes back together. Glass is paid for in dollars, it is imported and everything imported needs to be bought with dollars, and there are no dollars. As a school we need to move forward and to do that we need dollars. We HAVE dollars! In the bank but the bank will not let us have those dollars to use. I know that some of you reading this will not believe what I write, but it is true. Google it. Research it. So, how can you help?

Project 1: it seems most likely that, due to the increasing problem of corona in Lebanon, we will start school online in September 2020. I want to give a GREAT online experience to the students of this school and therefore I have proposed a Hybrid Online System (HOS) which I know many schools worldwide are adopting. We teach the lesson IN the classroom and stream that lesson live

In order to prepare for this we have to have cameras and internet connections in all 53 classrooms, we have to have a laptop connected with that camera so the teacher can show either their screen or the camera feed. This will cost an estimated $77,000 including the extra cabling and beefed up internet connection we need (all insanely expensive here in Lebanon).

Project 2 is the payment of $29,000 that we owe to Pearson (who own the Edexcel Examination Board) for the A Level and GCSE exams that our students did in June 2020. We are not permitted to send the dollars in our account out of the country, hence the need for help from outside Lebanon.

Project 3 is the purchase of a new Data Server to replace our old one. Estimated cost about $4,800.

All three together approximately: $110,000

I must stress that we have that and more in the bank. But we cannot get at it. My appeal to all friends of the school is to LEND us money at the moment. Pledge to LEND us money. We will repay you eventually. When we can access our dollars. So, IF you can help, PLEASE do so. Without your help, I cannot see how we will move forward.

The bank accounts are in my personal name in the UK. I will withdraw the money as cash and transfer it to Lebanon. You have my word on that. Thank you for reading!

NOTE : Because I am asking for LOANS and not donations, please send me an email (steve@lesbg.com) with a confidential email address that I can contact you on to ask for bank details at such time as we can repay the loan. If you would just like to donate. THANK YOU!

Accountability : In order to have transparency that the money raised is being spent on what we said we were going to spend it on, I will send anyone who asks, an email with an up to date list of funds that have been spent with invoices attached.