An Industrial Renaissance Grows Up in 'Jdeidet Marjayoun' at a Woman's Hands

'Among these pale-faced boys are tremendous native powers — if it were granted them to burst forth, they would bring marvels...!'

On the borders of Palestine, in southern Lebanon, lies Jdeidet Marjayoun. For that reason it was subjected, before the ordeal of 1948 and after it, to successive waves of refugee caravans, until it grew too narrow for its inhabitants, and those plains and knolls were choked with tents — heaps of human beings in a wretched state of despair, waiting for the ration appointments: to gain a sack of flour, a handful of rice and sugar... and perhaps a garment.

Wretched was the state of things in Jdeidet Marjayoun when, sixteen months ago, there alighted in it an emissary of Bayard Dodge, former president of the American University of Beirut, the friend of the Arabs. She came from America to help the refugees 'positively,' after the failure of the negative methods in use, and the smallness of their benefit, had become plain to all...

She came down to Marjayoun with a single intention — to open a school that would teach people to rely on themselves. Her hands were not full of gifts, and so she met with no welcome; glances turned away from her, and it is said she was pelted with stones...

And only 11 girls came to her school — in hope of a new dress!

...But how quickly people saw their error and came apologizing for their obtuseness! How quickly they flocked to her school from the six neighboring villages — women, men, and children; and through them Marjayoun came to know, in consequence, the raising up of an industrial renaissance that will one day be remembered with appreciation and thanks...

★

The story of Alma Kerr is the story of the noble, giving woman, carrying a human message to a people not her own — a people beguiled and deceived... a people living its life on the margin: in absolute dependence, on humiliating doles, as though every window of hope had been shut, and no road remained before it but the road of extinction...

A painful reality, which Alma Kerr saw with her own eyes and felt with her senses; and what she saw and felt pained her, and she resolved to devote all her resources to the work of rescuing a generation, that it might recover its dignity and become its own master by way of the restoration of its confidence in itself...

With her conquering will and her wondrous patience she began to work. Her burning zeal, and a deep tenderness in her eyes, drew people to her; and how quickly her tenderness and her zeal found answer in every soul, among refugees and native folk alike, until the whole quarter boiled over with energy and enthusiasm... She had only to show them 'how' to work, and they learned quickly, and mastered what they learned...

And the project grew, and grew great!

Those women who had never in their lives made the acquaintance of a needle became versed in sewing and in mending clothes, enough to meet their needs and sustain them at a pinch... Their number reached eight hundred...

An army of men and boys learned the arts of industry — trade, the making and mending of shoes, the crafts of pottery, iron, and straw, and the invention of designs; and shrunken, pent-up talents opened out into the loveliest of achievements!

★

I stood yesterday in the exhibition hall belonging to the institution on Hamra Street — and what amazement seized me! Mrs. Kerr pointed to the splendid, comfortable furniture: chairs and benches and tables, shoes, carpets and rugs.

'It fills me with pride and delight,' she said, 'that everything in this hall is the work of my children!'...

This chair was designed and made by a boy of 12 — these plates and pitchers of superb 'ceramic' are the work of a lad not past sixteen. 'He used to color pitchers with his mother, and under our guidance his gift crystallized quickly. Among these pale-faced boys are tremendous native powers — if it were granted them to burst forth, they would bring marvels. They have "hands of gold" — and we now have sixty of them drawing wages, and they have begun to feel the pleasure of work, and the worth of an honorable living earned by the sweat of the brow!

'Would you believe that one of the feudal sheikhs asked us to teach him a handicraft?! Is that not the greatest victory for the end for which I came, and for which I work?

'From under the hands of "my children" there come forth every day marvels of this furniture — which they call "the furniture of tomorrow" for its regard for the very newest requirements of comfort, simplicity, and taste. We are able to furnish the modern houses almost completely, carpets and rugs included, in which no one can keep pace with us. We have shipped our goods to five countries — apart from the orders that come to us from Lebanon.

'And what we give most of our attention to is the encouragement of the creative power. To that end we distribute the weekly prizes for the finest model or design; and what pride comes to their winners! And what an effect it leaves in quickened spirits and lifted morale!

'And thanks to their success, and the happiness that has flooded their hearts, their negativeness has turned into an open, beneficent positiveness. We need only hint to them of our wish to offer a gift to their refugee brethren in Syria, and the men and the women enlist and rush to finish the work quickly and well... and, above all this, with love!'

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Mrs. Alma Kerr has found the key to the secret... By helping the refugees and the poor by way of doles and gifts alone, we only destroy what remains of their vitality and their dignity, and drive them into a life of dependence and submission... The one and only way to give them light, that they may make out their road with their own eyes, is by way of discovering their talents and arming them with a manual trade that lifts their standard of living to the respectable level; and on this foundation they can plan a future in which they may put their trust.