On Friday, November 14, the students of Grade 9 at the Beirut Evangelical School for Girls and Boys in Rabieh visited the Lebanese School for the Blind in Baabda in response to Global Peace Festival-Lebanon's call to participate in a Youth Service Weekend.

While both schools are located in the Greater Beirut area and are not far from each other, this established a new bond of enriching relationship for the children in both schools. The 48 student volunteers from the Evangelical School spent the entire morning with the children in the School for the Blind.

Prior to the visit, the 9th graders had contacted the social worker at that school and had asked about some of the students’ needs, learning that the elementary students would benefit from having taped stories to listen to in English and Arabic. The volunteers enthusiastically recorded over 50 stories in both languages and presented them to the blind children, along with a plant for each child as a token of friendship.

The volunteers chatted with the children, sang with them, played games with them during the morning recess, toured the establishment, met with the principal, and most importantly, inquired about the children’s most urgent needs and about any upcoming school maintenance projects.

Upon their return to their own school, the 9th graders immediately set out to work on functions and benefits to be held later in school that would provide enough funds to purchase some of the blind children’s special personal requests, such as C.D. Discman and bed mattresses. The volunteers are also looking forward to visiting the establishment soon for a major clean-up and painting project.

A UPF Ambassador for Peace serving as a Project monitor, Amal Ibrahim, reported that this simple task successfully fostered a great sense of commitment among the 9th graders, whose fervor has spread to the entire secondary student population like a brush fire.