BEIRUT: A blend of cultures and cuisines was on display in Verdun Sunday for the launch of SGR, an NGO that hopes to forge ties between Lebanese and the country’s migrant communities.
The SGR Team is a group of women from a variety of different backgrounds who started the organization to offer free educational services, including English and Arabic classes, to migrants in Lebanon.
The classes, held at a center in Verdun, are also open to Lebanese citizens. Founding member Ghada Khairy said she hopes their classes will promote cultural exchange between Lebanese and migrant communities.
“Some organizations are just for foreigners, but we don’t want to separate from the Lebanese people,” Khairy said. “We want to change the stereotypes Lebanese may have of foreigners.”
Khairy herself is of Sudanese origins but was born and raised in Lebanon. She lamented that people in Lebanon sometimes have misconceptions about Sudanese people. For instance, they may think that the don’t speak Arabic, and she hopes that these views may change through having a Sudanese teacher or learning alongside other Sudanese people.
“We want society to accept us ... [We want to show that Sudanese people] speak Arabic and we know how to teach and we’re educated,” she said.
The team currently consists of Iraqi, Syrian, Sudanese and Lebanese women. Each member brings their own expertise and teaches a class in that field. Eman Mahdi is a Lebanese member and she teaches arts and crafts while Sudanese-British Sit El Benat Elgali teaches English classes.
Ghada’s sister, Samar, who is also a founding member of SGR, which stands for Samar-Ghada-Rafa, told The Daily Star that coming up with SGR seems like a dream now. Rafa is the third founding member.
“We were sitting around, three girls. We decided we wanted to start something of our own,” she recalled. “So we decided to start a team named after ourselves.”
They weren’t sure what they wanted to do with the team at first. They eventually decided they needed people with more expertise and reached out to older women to get them on board. Slowly they realized their vision for SGR.
“It enables women to work and also provides assistance to the migrant communities,” she added.
The official launching of the team’s center where they offer the classes took place Sunday. There was a rich mix of food offered from several different cuisines. Sudanese dishes such as asida, a porridge-like wheat-based meal, sat next to Lebanese grape leaf wraps, which reflected the guests who attended.
The center has already begun to offer classes in arts and crafts and languages, and the students who have signed up for the free lessons were also in attendance.
There was a buoyant atmosphere at the event and Samar Khairy is optimistic about the team’s future. They’ve already begun networking with other organizations that offer services to migrant communities, such as the Migrant Community Center (MCC) and Kafa, and they want to continue to build on that.
Khairy said they also want to start working more on promoting issues related to women’s empowerment.
“We also want to shine a light on the qualities and customs of other cultures,” she said. “We all have our own customs in food and music and we want to have events that show these different customs.”
Khairy said their main goal will continue to be building dialogue between migrants and those native to Lebanon.
“Before race or nationalities we want people to respect others simply for being human beings.”
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