The Village Welfare Society Opens Two Village Schools

The First Lady of Lebanon lays the cornerstone of the two schools and presents a radio-phonograph for teaching the children patriotic anthems — Emile Bustani gives a thousand liras yearly

It was on Monday, August 5, that the Village Welfare Society held a delightful festival at Manasef, in the Chouf, to lay the cornerstone of a school unique of its kind in Lebanon — a school of fundamental education in the village of al-Kniseh — which it has called the school of household management.

The story of this school is a Lebanese story — the story of the remote villages, astonished by the hands of the city and of civilization, feeling the spirit of the renaissance stirring in their veins. Three small villages — Deir Kousheh, al-Kniseh, and Amiq — donate broad lands to the Village Welfare Society so that the Society may build its school — this school which for a year past has been housed in two tents, braving the heat of summer and the cold of winter.

The Reconstruction Department answered the appeal of the Village Welfare Society and supplied it with the design and the building materials, while the Society supplied the land and the strong arms of the people of the three villages. There was intense enthusiasm the day they learned that the First Lady of Lebanon would lay the cornerstone with her own hand. For the first time in the history of this region a festival of this kind was held and great personages visited the region, so the people vied with one another in offering facilities and preparations.

The president of the Society, Mrs. Anissa Najjar, opened the ceremony with a speech in which she recalled the activity of these villages, the aims of the Society, and the pattern of its work. She said that it intends to join the six villages of Manasef in a cooperative association for production and marketing, on the day when these villages are left to manage their own affairs by themselves.

She then spoke of the necessity of cooperation between the government and the private organizations, and welcomed the presence of the Honorable Director of Agriculture, Alfred Chamoun; the delegate of the Ministry of National Education, Mr. Said Bustani; the delegate of the Ministry of Social Affairs, Mr. Maarouf Sweid; the Director of the Reconstruction Department, Mr. Emile Bustani; and the members of the Department, as a first step toward this idea.

Finally she presented to the First Lady of Lebanon the names of those who had cooperated for the revival of the Manasef center: Mesdames Zalfa Rawda, president of the center; Nadbah al-Rifai; Adelaide Rishani; Shafiqa Janji; and the center's energetic teacher, Alice Maalouf. And the donors of the land, at their head the mukhtar of al-Kniseh, Mr. Youssef Majid Saad, Mr. Gerges Ashkouti, and Messrs. Naim and Neameh Abi Nader. Mr. Raji Ashkouti was singled out for a word of thanks for his devotion in composing the school's verses and songs. Mrs. Najjar spoke of the school's furnishings and said the Society would help in procuring them; she presented, in the name of the Society, the equipment for athletic games, and said that the First Lady's own gift was a battery radio-phonograph, a piece of furniture, and a pressure cooker for the Bshetfine center.

She singled out the First Lady of Lebanon for the thanks of the Society and the thanks of the people, for her making August 5 an annual feast day for the village, by which they will remember her as a symbol of virtue and of the ideal housewife.

Mr. Emile Bustani spoke afterwards; after praising the Society's work he summed up with his gift of two thousand Lebanese liras, a thousand payable this year and a thousand the next; he then presented his companion, the deputy Anwar al-Khatib.

Mr. Anwar al-Khatib opened his speech with:
"You have no horses to present, nor wealth —
then let speech give joy, if fortune cannot."
It was a felicitous speech, in which he asked that the efforts of the Society and the government be extended to the suffering region of Iqlim al-Kharrub, and promised every possible help toward that end.

The children of the three villages vied with one another in songs of zajal, maanna, and ghzayyel, all telling of their joy at the care shown them by the First Lady, the Society, and the Reconstruction Department.

The children were followed by Messrs. Philippe Younes and Youssef Farah, who sang a warm welcome to the First Lady in graceful zajal of their own composing.

The mukhtar of al-Kniseh closed the ceremony, thanking, in the name of the region, the First Lady for the honor of her visit, and the Village Welfare Society and the Reconstruction Department for their services, and calling on the government to improve the Manasef road, to light it with electricity, and to supply it with water.

Thereupon Mrs. Najjar spoke in the name of the First Lady, saying that the First Lady of Lebanon had not known before of the condition of Manasef, that she would speak of the matter to His Excellency the President, and she pledged that the two of them together would exert their efforts to improve the situation.

After the apology of the Minister of Social Affairs, His Excellency Nasri Maalouf, for his inability to attend had been read, the First Lady stepped forward and placed a handsome box containing the necessary documents in the cornerstone, Mr. Emile Bustani helping her with the kneading of the mortar; she then advanced to a generous table spread with fruit from Fam Qarn al-Bajyouha, along whose sides were laid out all kinds of village sweets.

The Village Welfare Society began its services in the Manasef center in the village of Bshetfine, where — four years ago — it set the women to the craft of canning; and the Society sells this village's output of preserves to its friends among the Beirut families.

The people of Bshetfine have bestirred themselves and bought the land needed to build a school for boys, promising the Society to establish a club for it there; and they offered this land to the Reconstruction Department, that it might design for them a large school answering the village's educational and social needs. And so the Village Welfare Society asked the First Lady of Lebanon to lay the cornerstone of this school on the same occasion as her laying of the cornerstone of the school of household management.

For this occasion the products of the Village Welfare Society's club — preserves, handwork, and weaving — were displayed beside the platform; the First Lady was pleased with this economic work and presented a pressure cooker to the club.

Mr. Amin Abi Akar welcomed the First Lady; then Mrs. Souad Fayyad, adviser of the Society's local women's committee, spoke, telling of Bshetfine's delight at this singular visit and lauding the work of the ladies of the Village Welfare Society in her village. Mr. Emile Bustani spoke, praising the ambition of this region and promising its improvement. The closing word fell to a girl of the Society's club, who enumerated the demands of her village — which are the demands of every village in Lebanon: the doctor, the nurse, the road, water, and electricity.

Then Mr. Emile Bustani rose and presented to the First Lady, in the name of the Reconstruction Department, a small piece of Jezzine craftwork; and she advanced toward the plan of the school, where Mr. Kanaan, engineer of the Reconstruction Department, was presented to her and explained to her the design drawn out on the ground of the courtyard in colored chalk. And Mrs. Chamoun bent down, smoothing the cement and setting one stone upon the other, as though she were a builder of the first order! Finally all were invited to a table laden with delicious fruit and sweets.

We left the region with the soul full of two feelings: one grieving for the Manasef road and for the traces of the earthquake on the region's houses and on its inhabitants' pockets; and one blessing the hands that have lightened these afflictions for it.

What is beyond doubt is that the efforts of the members of the Village Welfare Society are prodigious, in proportion to their small number and to their slender income — which, but for the Ministry of Agriculture, would have been confined to the members' subscriptions — and in proportion to this Society's need of women social experts and of agricultural guides; for all their services are voluntary. In our view, the time has come for the Ministry of Social Affairs to adopt this project.