Tag: Lebanese Society for Educational and Social Development (LSESD)

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Like the Cedars of Lebanon: Baptists Honored for Lifelong Service

Image: Edits by Christianity Today / Source Image: Courtesy of Nabil Costa / Créel / Baptist World Alliance

Lebanese Baptists have reason to be proud. This month, two senior members of their community, Mona Khauli and Nabil Costa, were recognized for their faith-based work on behalf of their nation.

Mona Khauli, the 85-year-old executive director of the national Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA), was honored by the Baptist World Alliance (BWA) for her human rights work.

“Honor comes from God,” she said. “Having been in his service all these years, I do not need any from people.” She did, however, note her acceptance may be useful to inspire others.

Costa, general secretary of the Association of Evangelical Schools in Lebanon (AESL), was locally recognized with the inaugural Créel award as one of the top luminaries hailing from his nation’s southern region for pioneering leadership in special needs education.

“As a son of Maghdoucheh, I am pleased to be honored here,” he said of his Greek Catholic agricultural village, located five miles southeast of Sidon, which hosted the ceremony. “But our victory comes only from the Lord.”

Khauli experienced such triumph firsthand amid constant loss due to the civil war.

Assuming her role in 1977 following many years of volunteering, Khauli was immediately plunged into the reality of ongoing bombardment in Muslim-dominated West Beirut. So she turned the YWCA headquarters into a women’s hostel, receiving displaced Lebanese of all religious confessions.

The Syrian general occupying their neighborhood assigned his men to mount a missile launcher on YWCA’s strategically-placed rooftop. Khauli rushed to confront him. We have women here, she told him. Would you accept men running through the quarters of your mother and sister?

Anxious the whole time, she had to think on her feet when the general mentioned the Muslims among them. Change the name of your organization, he said. How can Christians oversee Muslims?

Khauli refused, setting a pattern of fidelity to the YWCA’s faith foundations, later repeated in peacetime.

“You are under the authority of your president, who trusts you because you serve Syria,” she told the general. “We are under the authority of Christ, and therefore we serve everyone in his name.” Before the war, Khauli’s predecessor had helped establish Lebanon’s Young Women’s Muslim Association, under Islamic leadership. The Christian version developed a reputation for…

And an excerpt from the second half:

The BWA also welcomed new partners from Niger and the Palestinian territories, and established new membership categories in aid work, missions, and education. And the first organization recognized in the aid category is the Lebanese Society for Educational and Social Development (LSESD), with AESL’s Costa as CEO.

“Inclusive education is restoring the value of evangelicals in Lebanon,” said Costa, “just as the missionaries did a century ago.”

In the 19th century, Western Protestants came to Beirut in the then-Ottoman Empire province of Syria, and focused on education—including the groundbreaking formal instruction of girls. The American University of Beirut was founded in 1866, and the first Baptist church was planted in 1895. Today, though evangelicals represent only one percent of the population, the AESL serves 20,000 multifaith students in 35 affiliated school.

In 1998, American Baptist missionaries handed over Arab Baptist Theological Seminary, Beirut Baptist School, and Baptist Publications to local leadership, who formed LSESD as its umbrella entity. Under Costa’s leadership, LSESD later added a youth ministry wing that now focuses on outreach, as well as Middle East Revive and Thrive (MERATH) for disaster relief and community development.

In September, LSESD will celebrate its 25th anniversary.

But it was the SKILD Center (Smart Kids with Individual Learning Differences), founded in 2011, that won him the Créel award—created to inspire hope by highlighting the regional and often small-town origins of nationally influential leaders. Costa believes that special needs education—as a voice for the voiceless—is helping evangelicals move out from the fringes of society.

“Individuals who actively work towards the betterment of marginalized groups are truly rare,” said Joelle Bou Younes, founder of Créel, a media and event planning company. “They should be appreciated for their selflessness and dedication.”

Under the sponsorship of the Ministry of Tourism, the Maghdoucheh presentation followed a similar event in Tripoli that honored Lebanese from the north. Regional celebrations are also planned for Mount Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley. Other southern recipients included the former director of general security, business and media leaders, an internationally celebrated violinist, and the mayor of Sidon, who was educated in an AESL-affiliated evangelical school.

Costa received his award from the minister of social affairs, and honored in testimony by the president of Notre Dame University–Louaize (NDU). In partnership with SKILD, in 2019 it became the first Lebanese collage to offer a study program for those with special needs. Prior to this in 2013, Costa coordinated with the Ministry of Education and the British Council to launch Lebanon’s National Day for Students with Learning Difficulties. The same year, SKILD partnered with the Sunni Makassid school system to establish its special needs department. Today the country has…

This article was originally published at Christianity Today, on July 28, 2023. Please click here to read the full text.

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Middle East Published Articles Schneller Magazine

When Parents Become Therapists

7-year-old Elias Saadeh sat on the floor with a bar of chocolate. It was all is his mother could do to get him back to his online studies, and prevent another violent fit.

Partly quarantine stubbornness, COVID-19 had shut down the entire Lebanese school system mid-March. But it was also autism. Diagnosed also with ADHD, this was the first time Elias was in the 24/7 care of his parents.

“I have to pray for him every day,” said Rebecca Saadeh. “It is exhausting, but it is a war we need to fight.”

Elias, a kindergarten student at the special needs-inclusive Lebanese Evangelical School (LES), would usually be with specialists. In LES he was in a mainstream class with a personal shadow teacher, pulled out six times per week for Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) and other therapy sessions as part of the cutting-edge autism support offered by the school. And during summers, he would spend time at the home of his shadow teacher and other speech and occupational therapists.

“Now, it has been three months without anything,” said Saadeh. “Today we tried to have a Zoom lesson, and he pretended to be dead.”

LES, like schools across Lebanon, scrambled to provide online learning options. From day one they recorded lectures for the student body of 1,700. The 125 with special needs received additional individualized lesson plans. But students like Elias—and their parents—needed something more.

“We work hard to include the parents in all decisions,” said Samar Rahme, coordinator of the LES Student Support Department. “And as a Christian, I have witnessed miracles in some families.”

With Lebanon going stir-crazy in quarantine, miracles would be needed now. Zoom calls were arranged for the parents. Special tips and videos were sent home, guiding how to work with their children.

And on April 22, Rahme shared them with the world.

At the 8th annual National Day of Inclusion conference, 1,400 participants from 17 countries joined in a Zoom call dedicated to crisis care for struggling parents. A ten-fold increase over past gatherings held in person, national coordinator Nabil Costa encouraged all to keep the faith.

“Amidst some of our nation’s darkest days … the simultaneous spread of the coronavirus and a downward spiraling economy is driving our families into a severe survival mode,” said Costa, also executive director of the Lebanese Society for Educational and Social Development (LSESD).

“However, a commitment to the rights and protection of individuals is not meant to be of service only when all the circumstances align well.”

LSESD, also known as the Baptist Society, launched the National Day of Inclusion in 2013, in coordination with the British Council and the Ministry of Education. Two years earlier Costa founded SKILD—Smart Kids with Individual Learning Differences—to address a gaping need in Lebanon.

A handful of private schools like LES, and their counterparts in the Sunni and Shiite communities, offered inclusive education. But none in the public school system. It wasn’t until SKILD ran a national survey in 2014 that officials realized up to 13 percent of students had a potential learning disability.

The next year SKILD launched a pilot program with seven public schools. By 2018, there were 30, and their teacher training manual was adopted by the Ministry of Education.

“When I first started, principals would say we don’t have special needs students, and hang up the phone,” said Hiba Al Jamal, director of SKILD. “Now, they are calling us for help.”

There are an additional 50 inclusive private schools in Lebanon, and SKILD works with partner institutions to extend specialized care to as many as possible. While LES manages its own staff, SKILD provides teacher training and eight therapists in support of the 98 special needs students at Khalid ibn al-Walid school, part of the Muslim private education sector, under a reasonable contract.

“SKILD believes we are all in this together, and are very generous,” said Jinan Khaywa, director of the school’s Makassed Learning Abilities Center, who also shared tips at the National Day of Inclusion.

“And now during COVID, we are directing parents how they can be the therapists for their own special needs children.”

Another Muslim-led institution, ECIL, part of the Shiite Imam Sadr Foundation, is also seeking to expand training. The only Lebanese center serving special-needs children up to 3-years-old, the initiative to transfer their skills to other therapists is also driven by the crisis.

COVID-19 has worsened already bad economic conditions, and the Ministry of Health has yet to pay ECIL its budgeted share. Perhaps training workshops can bring in revenue, as they also seek online donations.

“Every little bit helps, and we trust God, of course,” said director Maliha el-Sadr, noting ECIL both employs and serves all religious communities. “The most important thing is that we support these children as if they are our own.”

But ECIL is not the only institution facing a shortfall. SKILD, which runs partially on donations, is operating at 30 percent capacity. LES had to let go all their full-time therapists, and 30 percent of their special education teachers. And some Makassed families must apply for whatever their Islamic philanthropic foundation can provide.

Special education is expensive. Jamal hopes it can continue. “Our mission is to reach out to the marginalized, and reflect God’s love,” she said. “God doesn’t make mistakes, so these children are here for a reason—and we must serve them.”

This article was first published in the October 2020 edition of Schneller Magazine, on page 8. Please click here to read it online, along with their other articles about Christian life in the Middle East.