JRS Portugal raises funds for refugees in Lebanon

Lisbon, 05 February 2016 – JRS Portugal has received about 100,000 euros to support educational projects developed by JRS Lebanon in the Bekaa valley in the scope of a fundraising campaign taking place in Portugal from the beginning of October.

The campaign named “PAR Linha da Frente” is taking place until the end of March and aims to raise about 200,000 euros to ensure a daily meal to 1,720 Syrian refugee children (5 to 17 years) who are under an educational project that JRS is developing in five schools of the Bekaa valley region in the East of Lebanon. Each meal offered has a cost of only 0.29 euros, so 102 euros are enough to feed a child for a year.

The sum raised was handed over to JRS Portugal in a ceremony which was attended by the former United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, António Guterres, and also Tony Calleja, deputy regional director of JRS Lebanon, via Skype.

Guterres criticised Europe’s response to the current refugee arrivals: "If there is one refugee for every three in Lebanon, there are two per thousand in Europe. What, after all, is managed in Lebanon should be easily managed in Europe. But for that it is necessary that Europe jointly be organized at the entry point."

JRS Portugal director André Costa-Jorge thanked all who had donated to the campaign saying "with this generous support we can make a real difference to the lives of refugee children in Lebanon."

With this generous support we can make a real difference to the lives of refugee children in Lebanon.