NEF responded to the humanitarian crisis during this summer’s war, helping thousands of displaced families, particularly children, the elderly, and women who fled their homes and the bombing, taking shelter in schools and parks or were trapped at home without electricity, running water, and the basics for survival.

NEF’s priorities were food, water, sleeping bags, first aid and hygiene kits, medicines, medical check-ups, psycho-social help for children, even harvesting crops in the dangerous Bekaa Valley to be distributed to the displaced. NEF partnered with seven local nongovernmental organizations well located in the most hard hit areas to provide immediate logistics and outreach, including such badly affected places as southern Nabatiyeh and Sidon.

To focus attention on the urgency of the situation, NEF’s Board Chair/President and Amman-based Coordinator of Emergency Relief participated in U.S. media events, including a New York press conference in which a number of New York-based, American Muslim and Arab organizations called for peace and dialogue for Lebanon and a daily talk show beaming out of Chicago and webcast internationally.

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The previous summer of 2005, despite political turmoil, insecurity, and assassination in that very area of Beirut, NEF trained 24 representatives from eight Lebanese community-based organizations involved in micro-credit. Participants were health care and social workers, educators and researchers, women and the disabled—all with from one to 10 years of professional experience.

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