The Work of the Lebanese Women's Union During 1951

This is a brief sketch of the work of the Lebanese Women's Union, which we have drawn from the report of the recording secretary, Mrs. Anissa Najjar, delivered at the Union's meeting in Sidon. She said:

“Visits such as these are the Union's aim, that our Union may be less material and more spiritual. Circumstances have shown us our pressing need for union and solidarity — or rather, for dissolving ourselves into our highest goal. Our edifice will not rise high and lofty unless each of us lays her stone in its place according to the appointed plan. Of what does the Union — or any other — boast, and why do the government and the world organizations respect its opinion? It boasts of the works of the associations joined to it, and it is respected for the majesty of these works, and the works of its committees, which fill the gap where none of its associations can be.”

This year the Union concerned itself with creating friendly, orderly bonds among the Union's associations. It resolved to publish the important part of its work in “The Woman's Voice” magazine and to send general reports to its associations outside the town; and likewise to create a bond between the emigrants and the mother homeland, so it offered a grant to two girls of Lebanese descent to study two full years in the schools of Beirut.

The Union is in constant contact with the West. It is a member of the International Women's Union and is always invited to its congresses; it delegated Mrs. Makari, wife of our minister plenipotentiary in Bern, to represent it at the Geneva congress. It is now occupied with the congress on education and peace to be held next spring. This year it founded a new committee, under the name of the Peace Committee, to parallel the committees of the International Union and to keep constant watch on social and political tendencies. Among our contacts with the West was our sending the educator, Miss Aminah Khoury Makdisi, to the congress of women voters in America, where she represented us excellently. And in the autumn of 1950 we sent Mrs. Salwa Moumina to represent us at the congress on social affairs.

The new thing which the Union brought into being this year is aid to the needy woman in the courts, through the Union's lawyer, Mrs. Nina Trad, who has agreed to defend every weak woman whom the Union backs with its recommendation. And the project of the Committee for the Uplift of the Village Woman is another new thing in the Union. This committee is very active; its aim is the economic uplift of the village woman, by teaching her handicrafts, the home art of preserving, and the like, and then selling her products. We are now at work in the northern village of Mounsef.

The rest of the Union's committees — the political and the health committees especially — are in continuous struggle toward woman's political rights and the cleanliness of the town. As for the finance committee, there is more in its treasury than in any year of the Union's life. The committee for prisons and the raising of the moral standard: continuous activity and excellent results. Nor did the publicity and publication committee fail to fill a page in “The Woman's Voice” throughout the past year.

This year the Union appointed a special secretary to keep the records the Union requires and to ease the contact of its associations with one another. The secretary, Miss Nelly Ayoub, has begun her work and has organized part of the records; and she will not finish them without attending to some women's statistics, so that the Union's club may one day become woman's reference in every respect.