She Told Me... She Said

The Woman's Voice has resolved, as it carries out its mission of women's enlightenment, in Lebanon in particular and in the Arab countries in general, to keep in touch with the women's social movements — carrying the fruits of this good work and the efforts of these noble women to their sisters everywhere. What follows is a series of interviews given to the representative of The Woman's Voice, Ustad Musa Sulayman, by a distinguished company of those who have contributed, and still contribute, in the women's social field: Mrs. Iqbal Hashem Zawq, Alawiyya Zawq Shawqi, and Hortense Boulos Tamer:

President and founder of the Women's Charitable Society of Tripoli — delegate of the Lebanese Red Cross, and holder of the honorary Lebanese Order of Merit since 1942:
She told me — she said:

I have accompanied the women's movement in Tripoli for twenty-five years, and I spent my efforts spreading the call to encourage the daughters of my sex, together with a small band of my Tripolitan sisters, in the days when a woman in our circles was not permitted to raise her voice. I was encouraged in this by the free home atmosphere in which I lived.

I founded this society twenty-five years ago, and it is the oldest women's society in Tripoli. Its essential aim was, and still is, to assist the respectable poor families with whom a great city like Tripoli teems. It pleases me to mention that the number of members of this society has grown steadily year after year, until this year it has reached about one hundred and sixty members. Among them I may name the administrative committee: Mrs. Iqbal Zawq, Habiba Zayni, Fatima al-Namli, Mamdouha al-Mulla, Muna al-Mulla, Samiha al-Nu'mi, Asma al-Sibai, Nadia Minqara, and Najla Maatouq Haddad. All these ladies, with many others besides, belong to the most honorable families of Tripoli, and they came down into the field of work of their own accord when they felt that society stood in need of their useful and fruitful labor. The truth is that their efforts have ripened and borne fruit in the founding of a shelter that today houses ten girls, educating, feeding, and clothing them free of charge — and we have great hope that we shall be able to accept twenty girls in the very near future.

And where do you get the money, Madam?
Whoever strives is not disappointed. We hold literary lectures and theatrical performances, the members pay annual subscriptions, and certain donations come to us from people of living conscience and great soul. I was able to persuade Ustad Saadi al-Munla, head of the previous government, to assist us with the sum of five thousand Lebanese liras from the poor man's piaster fund. We are also expecting effective assistance from the Islamic waqfs of the town. Nor shall I forget the visit of Her Ladyship the First Lady of Lebanon to Tripoli with a large company of our ladies, and her donation of a thousand Lebanese liras and a hundred wool sweaters...

I understood from the lady speaking to me, moreover, that she works alongside another company of Tripoli's finest ladies in the Lebanese Red Cross — she is the society's delegate there.

Now, since I had come to al-Fayha to acquaint myself with the women's movement, I had no right to leave it without making the acquaintance of the leaders of this renaissance one by one, foremost among them Mrs. Alawiyya Zawq Shawqi, president of the Children's Welfare Society and the one with the longest hand in founding the first kindergarten in the city of Tripoli. I visited her, and she welcomed me, saying: Welcome to The Woman's Voice, which goes seeking its news from the sources — an effort for which we thank you. The women of Tripoli stand ready to do their part toward raising the voice of the Arab woman to the whole world.

Then she began to read out to me, and to the assembled company, passages taken from the society's statements and registers. She said: I felt, and a large company of al-Fayha's finest ladies felt with me,

the necessity of attending to our children — that the twentieth century, the age of science and light, was nearly half gone and we had not yet managed to establish a kindergarten for our children in which they might receive a sound upbringing by modern scientific methods. So we rose, all as one, to found the Children's Welfare Society.

That was in the year 1937, and not long after the society's founding the greater company of Tripoli's ladies joined it, until the number of members reached some 140, from the various sects and denominations, every one of them eager for the education of the child and the championing of his cause. The society's first concern, after its work had been suspended during the late war, was to establish a kindergarten on the model of the finest schools — for we believe with a firm faith that the best reform begins with the child. And we succeeded in obtaining a house for the kindergarten situated in the loveliest spot in the city of Tripoli.

As for the directress of the kindergarten, she is Miss Najah Kabbara. The kindergarten opened, for the first time in Tripoli, on the first of October 1945, and today it holds sixty pupils, boys and girls, ranging in age from three to seven. When I asked her about the running of the school and the means by which it works toward its goal, she said: The society is very well satisfied with the kindergarten's progress. What its supervisors care for above all is implanting virtuous character in the child and accustoming him to self-reliance — making him feel his own personality and trust in it. And I must mention that we lately took part in spreading the observance of Children's Day in Tripoli, hand in hand with the Child Welfare Committee in Beirut (one of the committees of the Lebanese Arab Women's Federation), and we strove by every means to make this day known to public opinion and to make it a national holiday throughout Lebanon. We collected about two thousand liras, which we have set aside to bring cheer to the poor children of Tripoli.

How often I thought, as I talked with this noble lady about her school and her orphanage, of the far greater company of our ladies who live pampered and luxurious in their palaces, far from the atmosphere of poverty and the poor, their ears closed to the cries of suffering humanity around them, as though they lived on Mars!!

Mrs. Hortense received me in her magnificent mansion and began to tell me of her charitable project, for which she spends the most precious things she has: her precious time, her energy, and her money. She said: The name of our project is the Mar Elias School and Orphanage. It is a fruit still tender, a little newborn of the Peace and Love Association, which has developed with time into a vocational school whose essential aim is to shelter orphan girls and to teach and educate them. We saw that societies pursuing many aims at once were numerous in the country; and out of our desire to attend to one portion of our daughters — who are, in my view, of all people the most deserving of mercy and compassion — we chose to confine our society's work to the orphan, for God enjoined her care, and the revealed scriptures commanded kindness toward her and the championing of her cause. Together with a company of the best of our ladies I spent tremendous efforts to bring this idea into being, and the Orthodox waqf administration placed a large building in the Monastery of Mar Elias at our disposal. We fitted it out as best we could, and now fifteen girls live in it, whom I gathered from circles so poor and destitute that no human being could imagine their existence!

— And how does the orphanage run?

With the utmost precision and order. There is a school and there is an orphanage. The school attends to teaching these little girls the two languages, Arabic and French — this takes place before noon. In the afternoon, the girls devote their efforts to household matters and handwork.

— And on what do you rely for the orphanage's finances?

On God, on various benefit entertainments, and on what generous souls freely give. News of the orphanage has traveled beyond the bounds of Beirut: there are those who see to provisioning the orphanage from Tripoli and Baalbek, and there are those far from us in the Mahjar who are seeing to it that the orphanage shall have its own building — foremost among them the two ladies Edma Yafet and Farida Malik Jaja. The future is ours.

The lady speaking to me fell silent. But the warmth of her talk and the strength of her faith had done their work in my soul. So I took my leave of her with congratulations, wishing this noble lady and her companions in their struggle all good and success.