By Shahera Khader BEIRUT: Jean Atir, the director of Home of Hope, an institute for street children, sits on his squeaky, worn-down chair, gazing down at the wooden floor with his weary brown eyes covered by wrinkled eyelids. The gray-haired 52-year-old is rigid and upright behind his russet desk, which is drowning in disheveled stacks of paper.
He grasps a white telephone in his left hand as his right forms a clenched fist and pushes down repeatedly on a pile of papers. His voice, stern and high-pitched, yells into the receiver, “I told you I will pay for it by Monday – you should not be charging me for this.” His face is red from forcing his words out so loudly, and sweat seeps from his forehead and trickles down his flushed cheeks.
Children crowd around his office door, trying to hear the conversation, and one asks, “Why is Mr. Jean so mad?”
The Home of Hope is now in severe debt and is in danger of closing by the end of this year. The government initially funded the institute, but since 2005 financial support has decreased significantly, thanks to the country’s incessant budget nightmare, leaving the facility unable to meet its spending needs.
“I can’t tell these kids, ‘I can’t feed you today because the government just doesn’t have money,’” says Atir. “Children don’t understand national debt; they are hungry and need a warm bed at night, and that is all I’m willing to understand as well,” he adds.
Street kids, both Lebanese and foreign nationals, arrive at the Home of Hope, a place of rehabilitation, after referral from the Justice Ministry. Founded in 1999 in the Beirut suburb of Kahaleh, it is the only institute for street children in Lebanon.
Atir has been in charge of the center since its inception. Since 1999 he has lived in the center with his wife, three children and the orphans.
He says the government used to pay about 70 percent of his annual costs, but since 2005 has not given him anything.
This is countered by Social Affairs Minister Salim Sayegh, who says Home of Hope has received financial support from his ministry every year since 1999, adding that the amount has been reduced since 2005, but nevertheless the facility receives yearly checks that should partly cover expenses.
Atir says that Home of Hope subsists on donations, which he often asks for by going door-to-door around the country.
He visits the Social Affairs Ministry every week and pleads with them to give him the amount promised in their contract, “but nothing, always nothing.”
“The government stopped standing by their pledge for political reasons, I suppose,” says Atir.
He was appalled that the state continues to send him children every month when they do not send any checks. “They even cut off the electricity if I’m late on the bill.”
The center operates on a contract with the government, which has been violating its side of the deal since 2005, Atir says. Sayegh says the ministry has had to cut back its support for all of its social projects.
“It’s not just the Home of Hope that has to deal with this financial downfall; it’s a situation out of our hands, and no matter what is said it will not change,” the minister says. “We are experiencing a tight budget, and we should all learn to get used to such a situation.”
Regarding the electricity bills, Sayegh says that no one in the country is exempt from electricity bills, and paying is a duty that all must abide by. He adds that he will continue to send children to the Home of Hope until Atir declines to take them in.
“We have a signed contract, and until that contract ceases children will continue to be sent to the Home of Hope.”
If the center closes because of a lack of funds the children will be sent to several centers and will not be deported, Sayegh says.
If the center closes because of a lack of funds the children will be sent to several centers and will not be deported, Sayegh says.
One 25-year-old male, who has been at the center since he was 15, says he is fearful the center might close. He has been sent to jail several times because he has no identification documents.
“In jail they beat me, they tell me to shut up, and when I say I’m hungry, they don’t let me out for days and sometimes months,” he says, revealing scars on his back and forehead.
He was allowed to leave the rehabilitation center when he turned 18 but declined because it was “either here or jail,” he says. He chose instead to stay in the institute and help the staff to take care of the children. He now teaches them practical skills such as sewing, repairing and cleaning cars, as well as cooking and construction.
“It’s the only way they can have a chance to take care of themselves,” he says. “We are not allowed to go to school, so I teach them to fix cars and bake bread instead.”
He gets days off and weekend holidays but prefers to stay inside what he calls the “safe grounds” of the institute. He cannot go anywhere without looking over his shoulder. In a matter of seconds the authorities would have him in their vehicle and off to jail if he is not careful, he adds.
“I’m always scared on the streets,” he says. “If I had committed murder I would not be as scared as I am now, and it’s not my fault.”
He has raised many children whose families later came to retrieve them, but he does not have any family in Lebanon, he says.
“A knife stabs my heart every time I see a child leave, because I’m still here, and I can’t go anywhere,” he says.
Biological family can pick up children from the institute at any time, but adoption is impossible. The children have no documentation, and for that reason – as well as the problems of adopting across religions – adoption is out of the question. If the center closes, and these kids are distributed to other orphanages, they still will not be able to be adopted.
Petra Wardini, a 25-year-old housewife, has been visiting the institute for almost five years and has become attached to one child in particular, a 7-year-old boy who was found in Tripoli. She began to seek lawyers in order to adopt him. The endeavor proved unsuccessful.
“I love him just as though he were my own son, but the government who doesn’t know us and our relationship has lawfully declined the adoption because I am a Christian and he is not,” she says. “I can’t believe families would just throw away their chance to be parents – I would kill to be his mother.”
Wardini continues to visit the children and is patiently waiting for the courts to change their laws and give her and her husband the chance to be parents.
The Home of Hope has housed children who were raped, worked as prostitutes and have begged and stolen. Children in the institute often share similar life histories and are able to relate to one another, something which might be lacking in other facilities.
Psychologist Hala Khoury, who has been working with underprivileged children for 15 years, says it is imperative that these children remain together. If they were separated and put with other children from different backgrounds not associated with street life, then their trauma will increase substantially, she says.
In addition, she says, these children helped each other by healing each other’s wounds, a crucial factor for improving their lives.
“Laws are laws, but children are the victims – street children are the victims,” says Atir.
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