The Lebanese Women's League

It is the child of the events of the 22nd of November, the day the people rose in outrage at the arrest of the Lebanese President and the men of the government... The women went about the streets, exposing their breasts to the bayonets of the black soldiers! And they showed a patriotism that tongues recounted and the newspapers reported. This gathering of devoted ladies assembled, demanding the formation of an association that would unite them in one voice and one opinion, to defend the right and to work for the good of this homeland. And so came 'the Lebanese Women's League'...

The First Lady of Lebanon, Mrs. Laure Khoury, was elected honorary president, and Mrs. Heneni Tarcha its working president; she was re-elected four years after the first election.

The Lebanese Women's League saw that the various women's associations in Lebanon look after the poor — clothing the naked, feeding the hungry, sheltering the homeless — and so it directed its efforts toward the constructive projects whose establishment all Lebanese circles were demanding. They were mighty efforts, which made their dreams and hopes come true. And behold, the magazine 'The Woman's Voice' — the only magazine that expresses woman's opinion in Lebanon — appeared before us in March 1945 with its elegant face, and the throngs of women applauded it, welcoming it and rejoicing at its appearance. Not half a year had passed after the appearance of 'The Woman's Voice' before the founding of the 'Kindergarten' in the Ras Beirut quarter was completed... With this, the Lebanese Women's League took two steps of real value and weight along the road of the honorable national struggle.

Anyone who has accompanied the magazine 'The Woman's Voice' through the stages of its growth and rise will find no difficulty in tracing its progress and improvement. Not four years have passed since its founding — years spent in continuous struggle and great sacrifices — before it has become the pride of women's magazines in the Arab East and the rival of the finest magazines of the world...

The 'Kindergarten' project is no less important than the project of 'The Woman's Voice'. It is fit to provide innocent, playful childhood with a pure atmosphere that trains their minds and releases their young imaginations from their fetters, revealing their gifts and capacities and the spiritual values latent in their pure souls.

The Kindergarten of the Lebanese Women's League keeps pace, in its educational methods, with the most modern kindergartens in the world. It is directed by teachers who are specialists in child education and psychology. It is equipped with the newest and most plentiful toys and with everything that interests the child and brings his body and mind abundant benefit and innocent enjoyment.

Elementary classes have been added to the kindergarten, and classes will continue to be added until the kindergarten becomes a complete elementary school.

The accomplishment of a great constructive project such as this stirred the zeal of the Lebanese colony in Venezuela, which donated to the kindergarten, through Mrs. Eva Malik, wife of Dr. Charles Malik, Lebanon's Minister Plenipotentiary in America, the sum of 30 thousand dollars for the erection of a modern building for the kindergarten. The Lebanese Women's League is now pressing the government to complete the transaction for the purchase of the land and the raising of the new building before the present building grows too small for its children, whose numbers increase steadily, year after year.

What stirs admiration most in this model kindergarten is the non-sectarian spirit that prevails in it.