** “When a door slams, the kids get scared,” said Qarrah. “They think it’s the sound of the airstrikes they used to hear back in Aleppo.”**
Only four months ago, 75-year-old Qarrah fled to Lebanon with her two daughters, Aziza and Fadilah, and 15 grandchildren. “My two daughters are widowed and we have no one to provide for us.”
Now Qarrah and her family live in two tents in Tal Abbas village. Theirs is among the 839 informal tented settlements housing Syrian refugees in Akkar, Lebanon.
Fadila’s 13-year-old son Ahmad works in a coal processing factory to provide bread for the family. “It is a temporary job,” said Fadila. “If there’s a need for a worker on a specific day, they’ll send for Ahmad. He makes $3 for a day’s shift.”
Aziza also works to help the family survive. “When it’s the harvest season, I work in agriculture,” she said. ”But the income is not even enough to pay the rent of the tent.”
Seventy-one percent of Syrian refugee households in Lebanon live below the poverty line.
Donated Essentials for Syrian Refugee Families
This spring, Qarrah’s family received a package including hygiene and baby care items, and other essentials. With a generous donation from Lutheran World Relief, ANERA delivered kits to 1,100 refugee families in the informal tented settlements of Akkar.
“It’s been a long time since the kids had these things,” said Fadilah. “In spite of everything, these kits give us some hope. Best of all, they put smiles on our children’s faces.”