{"id":10617,"date":"2019-09-02T21:18:54","date_gmt":"2019-09-02T19:18:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sboverseas.org\/?p=10617"},"modified":"2019-09-02T21:18:54","modified_gmt":"2019-09-02T19:18:54","slug":"our-mind-in-brussels-but-our-heart-in-lebanon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sboverseas.org\/nl\/our-mind-in-brussels-but-our-heart-in-lebanon\/","title":{"rendered":"Our mind in Brussels but our heart in Lebanon"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Working to bridge two refugee realities <\/h3>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/brussels-express.eu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/IMG_20190729_125346-1024x768.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-35343\"\/><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>I often get asked about how it\u2019s possible for a small organisation like <a href=\"https:\/\/sboverseas.org\/nl\/\">SB OverSeas<\/a> to operate in both Lebanon and Brussels \u2014 What\u2019s the connection? Why Lebanon? Why Brussels?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We may be a relatively small organisation compared to the massive \ninternational organisations that operate offices in both Lebanon and \nBrussels, but the dedication, strength, power and love within SB\u2019s team \nmakes up for the lack of size. I spent the last two weeks with our teams\n in Lebanon, and not only saw the connection clearly, I also learned how\n much this small organization means to so many people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This impact was most evident when I had the chance to spend the day \nwith our entire team during a rare full-team of SB OverSeas teambuilding\n day at the Awaly Park in the sea-side town of Saida, Lebanon. Brussels,\n Beirut, Saida and Arsal teams of teachers and staff joined forces to \nspend a day focused on building relationships, cooperation between the \nmembers of the staff, as well as to have fun together in a de-stressing \nway. We gathered among the trees blowing in the wind and the river \nslowly passing by, an environment in nature that sparks creativity and \nserenity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The teambuilding day had the goal of building relationships between \nand within our respective centres and offices, developing our awareness \nof each other\u2019s strengths and about how to work with each other under \nstressful and challenging circumstances. Led by our resident \npsychologists and education coordinator, Eman, Diala and Karla, we \nengaged in a series of activities that tested our communication skills, \nflexed our ability to empathize with others and created a space for \ndiscussion on our strengths and weaknesses. While we started the day \nwith the staff paired with their colleagues from the same centre, by the\n second activity the whole team was mixed between centres, taking \nadvantage of a rare time to connect with their colleagues in a different\n city.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In one of the activities, each person was tasked with creating a \nposter that represents them as an individual, using a bit of newspaper, \nglitter and other things found in the nature around us. We then each \ntook turns presenting what we made, and a bit more about ourselves to \nthe whole group. The majority of the SB OverSeas staff in Lebanon are \nSyrians and therefore among what was shared were stories of success, but\n also of failure, of losing a family member, but also of gaining a \nfamily from the people at SB. In that moment of sharing, we were able to\n all feel connected in our passion for helping others and our drive to \nachieve our goals both personally, and for the work we do together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I felt particularly lucky to be among my colleagues for this rare \nmoment of sharing, empathy, communication and community. The physical \ndistance between Lebanon and Brussels is difficult to manage admittedly;\n not only because of the different realities between the two contexts, \nrelated to daily life and the work that we do in each location, it\u2019s \nalso the fact that my life in Brussels allows me to go to Lebanon and \nvisit my colleagues. My colleagues are not able to do the same. It\u2019s a \nheartbreaking thing to think about, but that\u2019s also what makes it so \nimportant for SB to exist in both these spaces. For my Syrian \ncolleagues, the men, women, youth and children that come to our centres \u2014\n SB OverSeas in Brussels is a communication line between them and the \npowerful international community in order for them to express what their\n lives, their reality, their struggles, their needs, their power, their \ncapabilities are even when their physical presence here is not possible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>While it\u2019s difficult for this element of our work to be clearly \nevident in Brussels due to the distance, the difference and the comfort \nof our lives here, it\u2019s constantly at the basis of every report and \nproject we propose, and each article, video and photo we publish. So the\n answer to why is SB OverSeas in both Brussels and Lebanon \u2014 because we \nhave to be.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Working to bridge two refugee realities I often get asked about how it\u2019s possible for a small organisation like SB OverSeas to operate in both Lebanon and Brussels \u2014 What\u2019s the connection? Why Lebanon? Why Brussels? We may be a relatively small organisation compared to the massive international organisations that operate offices in both Lebanon [&hellip;]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":162,"featured_media":15961,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[140,137],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10617","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-awareness","category-belgium"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Our mind in Brussels but our heart in Lebanon - SBO - D\u00e9veloppement Durable &amp; Aide Humanitaire<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/sboverseas.org\/nl\/our-mind-in-brussels-but-our-heart-in-lebanon\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"nl_NL\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Our mind in Brussels but our heart in Lebanon - SBO - D\u00e9veloppement Durable &amp; Aide Humanitaire\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Working to bridge two refugee realities I often get asked about how it\u2019s possible for a small organisation like SB OverSeas to operate in both Lebanon and Brussels \u2014 What\u2019s the connection? 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