“Al-Mabarrat” Celebrates Its 38th Anniversary

Zeina Berjaoui. This article was published in the newspaper Al-Safir on 2015-05-08 on page 4 - Local «Al-Mabarrat Charitable Association» is celebrating the thirty-eighth anniversary of its founding, raising the slogan «With you we continue, and with you the journey of goodness and love is completed», at a reception it is holding at five this afternoon at the «Al-Saha» restaurant. The anniversary comes five years after the departure of the association's founder, the Marja' Allama Sayyed Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah, whom the association's members remember and whose initiatives and counsels they preserve, continuing on a path he launched and which after him was taken up by his son Sayyed Ali Fadlallah, proceeding from his father's view of religion and of life. Fadlallah tells «Al-Safir» that the association «set out in its work relying on the energies of the people, and it is keen not to be mortgaged to any political framework; its institutions are spread across all the Lebanese territory», pointing out that «the association's decisions today are taken at the level of the policy of its founder, who used to call for the necessity of voting in case of a lack of agreement on particular decisions». Fadlallah adds: «The association is not a political framework; rather it has its own view, having set out with the aim of humanitarian work. In every local humanitarian crisis, the association finds itself concerned to stand with everyone who is wronged, because it is not separate from society. And after the departure of Al-Mabarrat's founder, new institutions arose that attend to people with special needs and the elderly.» He explains that «the association today is thinking about wider fields, such as solving the problems of families after the multiplication of divorce cases that it has sensed through its religious-law office, and likewise helping families to bring up their children», recalling what his father called for, that «religions are not the problem of life; and in support of the Sayyed's method of the association embracing all religions and sects, we are working on creating camps, in cooperation with the forum for dialogue of religions and cultures, with the aim of deepening communication». At the financial level, according to Fadlallah, the association lacks stability and wagers on people's trust, and benefits from experiences so as to arrive at «the pioneering experience». On the thirty-eighth anniversary, Fadlallah places the association's journey in the hands of «those who love it and are concerned to protect it, bearing in mind that people's criticism of the association is fundamental, through its relationship with them», calling for «the complementarity of the work of the charitable institutions in Lebanon, and for affirming their lack of fanaticism and their competition in offering the best humanitarian work, in the shadow of the difficult circumstances Lebanon is living». New projects Alongside the projects «Al-Mabarrat» has completed in past years, the association has recently launched its new projects: the «University of Sciences and Arts in Lebanon», the building of the «Al-Kawthar» sports hall, the «Iqraa Institute for Religious and Educational Sciences» on the airport road, the «Al-Sirat Vocational Institute» in Hermel, the «Al-Mustafa Health and Social Centre» in the south, and the «Prophet Idris Public Library» in Jouaiya. The public facilities that help in providing the various services in the institutions have been modernized, including the sports halls, the playgrounds and the laboratories, the rooms for developing «psychomotor» skills, the gardens, the audiovisual rooms, the art workshops, the libraries and the theatres. There are projects in progress, such as a centre for multiple disabilities at «Al-Hadi Institution», «Al-Sadek Al-Amin Mabarrat», a home for the elderly in Jouaiya, the «Al-Sayyeda Zeinab Health and Social Centre», and «Al-Hawraa Mabarrat» in the central Bekaa. At the administrative level the association seeks to develop the institutional framework based on applying quality systems. As for the educational and care level, it is preparing to undertake an experiment to help expatriate students returning to their homeland, with the aim of integrating the expatriate pupil into his class so that he is on a par with his fellows.