Report on the Women's Union Session of December 22, 1945

This session was held in the clubroom of the Ahliah National College at three o'clock in the afternoon of the twenty-second of December. After the minutes of the previous session were read, the reports of the committee presidents followed in turn. The president of the education committee spoke of her statistics concerning education in Lebanon, and then of the women's renaissance in Zahle, where the founding of a kindergarten has been undertaken through the energy of the women's association there. Then the president of the health committee spoke of the plans of the joint health committee, which comprises members from the various Beirut organizations and associations, and whose aim is to unite efforts in combating filth in the capital.

The president of the child welfare committee read a full report on the Children's Home, which this year houses 72 children who receive every form of health and educational care. The government continues to extend its assistance to this institution, and has granted it the sum of 1,500 liras — about half the annual expenditure. The committee is persevering in its efforts to find premises for a second home, and new members have been added to it. It is preparing to celebrate Children's Day on February 18, in the hope of making it a national holiday.

The president of the Union announced that the government had recently agreed to allot the Women's Union a plot of land for the building of its promised club, and the question of the women's congress in Sind was laid on the table for discussion. It was announced that four ladies delegated from Lebanon would attend this congress. Some of the women asked what Lebanon stood to gain from being represented at the Sind congress, and mourned the government's moneys spent freely on congresses held in far-off lands, instead of being spent on projects of development of which the country stands in the direst need. The news was also announced of the withdrawal of four women's associations from membership in the Union; a committee was formed to look into the matter and to meet the boards of these associations in order to discuss with them the reasons for their withdrawal. The political committee was instructed to hold itself in readiness to follow local events and to support the government in its stand on the new political developments.