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whose father is serving time in jail, and
for Jamil*, whose parents simply cannot
afford to raise him.
“All of these children come from under-
privileged families,” said Allam, who has
been working at the orphanage for the
past 18 years. “We take them in and pro-
vide them with a home and education.”
For their part, IC students knew little of
the sob stories surrounding them.Their
main concern was to make sure their
young charges had a good time.
“They’re cute,” said Paul Adami, 15. “It’s
been worth all the work.”
Rabab Sadr, 14, agreed. “I like it.This is a
wonderful chance for all of us.”
More than an hour had past, and the
children showed no signs of tiring. Little
girls, were looking up affectionately at the
older IC girls and, as little ones tend to
do, would frequently reach out to them
for quick hugs. IC girls happily obliged.
Two IC alumni were on hand to supervise.
When contacted,
Erik Hitti ’09
and
Ya-
hiya Sinno ’09
quickly accepted their Alma
Mater’s special request to “come back”.
It was a chance for them to walk back
into their old IC classrooms.
“I really like it that I’m back,” said Hitti,
a pre-med student at AUB. “I was very
committed to social work when I was
at IC. And it’s great helping younger
students do this.”
The program, reports Zein El Abidine,
has been a success so far. Each grade level
in the middle school has been working on
age appropriate projects. Younger classes
have been launching awareness campaigns
for a cause of their choosing, or “buddy
reading” to IC’s preschoolers, while older
ones have been working with underprivi-
leged children on and off campus.
“It’s a really wonderful experience for
our students,” said Zein El Abidine.
“They choose their own class representa-
tive to report to me, the representative in
turn forms class committees to plan the
activities under a specific theme (trust,
teamwork, etc.), the committees then
assign each student in class a role in the
project.”
Every detail of the process is noted on
paper and presented back to Zein El Abi-
dine.The projects take around a month
of preparation and –with much zealous
insistence from Zein El Abidine – must
be highly organized.
The work seems to be worth it for both
parties.There was an unmistakable satis-
fied look on the faces of the 3ème class
that Friday afternoon as the children bid
them a fond farewell and students set
about putting the classes back in order.
“I liked doing this project,” said Victoria
Kabalan, 14. “They’re great kids. I’d like to
do it again.”
* Children’s names have been changed to
protect their privacy.
SPRING
2012
13
“The class planned everything
and raised the funds to buy the needed material,
even the donuts”