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Society

The Lebanon Project

July 23, 2015

In a country that has been stuck in a political and economic crisis for decades, the disabled have been pushed to the margins of society. This is what Franziskus von Heereman found when he went to Lebanon for the first time just after he had graduated in 1997. The young German visited several institutions for the mentally and physically disabled and was horrified by what he saw.

https://p.dw.com/p/1ESoQ

Inmates were only supplied with the basic necessities and many were kept in straitjackets or sedated with drugs. So von Heeremann had an idea: to start a summer camp for the inmates of homes for the disabled to give them a brief respite from their dreary everyday lives. A year later, he returned with 27 friends and support from the German association of the Order of Malta and put his plan into action: young volunteers provided severely disabled people with intensive and loving care in a camp in the Lebanese mountains. The Lebanon Project is now in its 15th year - and it just keeps on growing....