Fighting for Disability Rights in Lebanon for over 60 years: The Story of Al-Kafaàt

Embrace has had the privilege of partnering with the Al-Kafaàt Foundation since the 1960s. In Arabic, Al-Kafaàt means ‘abilities’ and since its foundation it has been supporting and working with those living with disabilities from all over Lebanon. Serving through many years of civil war and, more recently, economic and political crisis, theirs is an incredible story of dedication, vision and faith.

We recently spoke to Myriam Shwayri, daughter of Al-Kafaàt’s founder and a current board member:

Can you tell us about your father and his vision and why he founded Al-Kafaàt?

It’s a beautiful story. My father, Nadeem Shwayri, met a girl with severe challenges and he wanted to help. How could he produce prosthetics to help her? How could she integrate in society? That’s why he started Al-Kafaàt. It’s a beautiful story but it's not the story, per se, that is meaningful. It's the fact that he wanted to change mentalities. He wanted to create awareness. He wanted to turn a mirror to the society and to say, look, you need to respect human life. You need to respect the dignity of people. That was the objective.

At the heart of Nadeem’s vision was respecting human life, the dignity of people and integrating them in society, treating them as equals. That’s what he saw was lacking in our society. And sadly, over 60 years later, it's still not existent. So, it's a constant battle.

Embrace and Al-Kafaàt have been working together since the 1960s. Can you tell us a bit about that?

Embrace/Biblelands has been with us from the start, and Al-Kafaàt grew and developed thanks to the support and the presence of Biblelands/Embrace. It's not just the meeting of two organisations, it's the companionship of two organisations, two missions.

The then Secretary of Embrace (then Biblelands), Robert (Bob) Clothier and the founder of Al-Kafaàt, my father Nadeem Shwayri, were great humans, great humanitarians, dedicated to respecting human life, and respecting the dignity of those who are challenged. They were entrepreneurs, visionaries, dreamers - but also pragmatic. Because it's always good to dream, but you must be pragmatic! You must also be a businessman but a social businessman, an entrepreneur with a heart. Those two giants met in the late 60s and we are indebted to that great friendship.

They met at a specific time in history, when individuals were moving forward, were launching projects to respect life. It was a different generation, different mindset. It was the perfect alignment of the stars. If that didn't happen, then the story of Al-Kafaàt wouldn't have evolved as it has during the past years.

What are your earliest memories of this companionship between Al-Kafaàt and BibleLands/Embrace?

Just like my siblings Roula, Raif and Ramzi, I was born into Al-Kafaàt, so when I came to this life, Al-Kafaàt had already started, and Biblelands, Bob Clothier, was already in the picture. He was a close friend and he became my godfather as well as my brother’s Ramzi. For me, the story of the friendship between Bob Clothier and the Shwayri family is very important.

He used to visit very often during the 80s, which were the roughest, hardest and most challenging years at Al-Kafaàt. During those mad years of civil war, I was a kid. We called him Uncle Bob, and whenever he came to visit, he brought a bag of liquorice to me and my siblings.

I remember very well in 1982 or 83, at the peak of the war. There was no electricity, there were checkpoints everywhere. It’s the middle of the war, there’s no security, there’s shelling and in the middle of the night, the doorbell rang. We were worried and didn’t know who came to visit us in the middle of the night at this terrible time. Then when we opened the door, there he was, holding a bag of liquorice with a big smile on his face. We were touched and moved. My father was greatly moved. That shows you the real depth of commitment to humanitarian work and to a Christian mission in action. This shows you genuine friendship.

*One of the many checkpoints in Beirut during the civil war, 1982. (Credit: James Case, Wikimedia Commons)*

Our centres are located in regions that are not Christian, and during the civil war these were very delicate regions. When war erupted, our centres were not only occupied and destroyed and looted, but we often had no access to them. I remember how it was difficult on my parents and very difficult on my father to accept that and I remember Bob Clothier coming to visit my father to say how can I help?

At one point we had to flee to France when our house was destroyed, but my father made the decision that he was not going to emigrate. He was not going to leave Lebanon but would rebuild the centres. Once the shelling stopped, once there was a lull in fighting, once the looters left, we would pick everything up again and build everything back from scratch. Fifteen different times he did that. And Bob Clothier was always there, by his side, as a Friend who comforted him in these severe times, and as a partner in this Mission.

It's Christian action and Christian commitment to helping people with special needs, irrespective of their religion, irrespective of their beliefs. It’s respect of human life and respect of the dignity of people with special needs.

*Damage to one of Al-Kafaàt's centres during the Lebanese Civil War.*

As you’ve been telling us, we’ve come through some incredibly difficult times through Lebanon's history, through our shared history, and we're again in the midst of another testing, unprecedented time for Lebanon. Are there any lessons from the 67-years of Al-Kafaàt history that you feel could be instructive for the challenges you face today?

You need to have a lot of faith, you need to be committed and patient. Patience is important. During the war when we couldn't go down to the centres, this wasn't a matter of a year or two, it was for 10 years on and off.

We also need to have the ability to change and make difficult decisions. It was a very difficult decision for my father back in 1975 to stop the workshops [which had been highly successful and were producing items such as leather bags to bring in income for Al-Kafaàt]. He realized that this was not going to work [amid a civil war] and the urgency was to focus on the humanitarian work.

Today we are also facing a difficult situation where our model also needs to change. The model doesn't work anymore because the Lebanese government is not functioning properly, and public funds are either scarce or no longer available. So, we need to think of a different model. We need to look ahead and see how can we keep that legacy, that mission, that vision, and how can we transform it, so it goes on for the next 66 years.

What are your daily hopes and your daily fears?

We are constantly hopeful, and we're constantly fearful. For me there's no hope without fear and there's no fear without hope. It's a daily challenge, if not an hourly challenge. We work hard and pray always, for our Mission to be maintained, despite – and in spite of – the growing challenges that we continue to face in Lebanon and the entire Middle East.

I would like to thank you for being with us, specifically in the last couple of years, which have been really very challenging and extremely, extremely difficult for each and every one of us. So, thank you to everyone. The warmth that flows is palpable but it’s the work that we're doing together that is the greatest applause that we all share together.

ADDENDUM - ACHIVE PHOTOS

Myriam sent us these photos from the Al-Kafaàt archive that she asked us to add to the blog. We are so grateful to her speaking with us and taking the time to select these precious photos for us, and we look forward to many more years of fruitful partnership with Al-Kafaàt.