Beirut Support Fund Fransabank’s response to August 4, 2020 Beirut blast tackled two main targets: The Bank’s employees and the clients, with the objective of providing immediate relief to communities affected by this critical event. Fransabank has set up a special fund “the Beirut Support Fund” to facilitate the return of its affected employees’ population to their homes. The Bank was concerned about its employees residing in the devastated areas and the impact the explosion had on their homes. In view of that, assessment of the damages were achieved for each concerned employee and a partial cost of the repairs was reimbursed. Funds were allocated based on level of destruction and salaries and the Bank made sure that the employees at the lower end of the pay scale benefited the most. In addition, the Bank’s life insurance arm, Bancassurance, was the first in the Lebanese insurance market to fully cover all the claims resulting from this tragedy.  

Protecting vulnerable populations and promoting the enhancement of real income and capabilities. Nothing to do with the blast.

They have been undertaking psychotherapy workshops. But they are bearing significant difficulties to find funds.

They suffered physical damage in their offices. They are providing donations for organizations concerning lighting and lamps and they are offering maintenance for free.

They are being active in supporting NGOs following the Port Explosion. More concretely, they are donating food boxes to families and A4 papers to several NGOs. As for the WEPs, we are still in the planning process.

After having many of their branches non-operating after the blast, Liban Post has launched an initiative of mobile truck offices available at all damaged regions. They currently have three trucks in Ashrafieh, Downtown and Gemmayze.

Despite operating at -83% les s than previous year, LBACC has managed to offer ways to help as much as possible. They supported an employee who lost his house by providing him with funds to begin renovating. They also supported 2 NGOs and provided them with food boxes so they can offer free meals. (Saint Vincent de Paul and Jam3eyet Kashfeyeh Alistiqlal). They also offered all of their staff money as Social Assistance during these hard and difficult economic situation.

They distributed liters of water in the damaged areas of Beirut.

MEDCO has been working on two main goals for the past month: Rebuilding Beirut & Helping our community.
This has been done by:
– Building a donation platform to Beb w Shebbek, an association that is rebuilding damaged homes through online platforms www.medco.com.lb
– Supporting NGOs and volunteers with their mission by fueling them with Propell gasoline vouchers.
Lebanese Red Cross by tripling its monthly contribution of free fuel for August
Arc En Ciel – 5,000 Liters
Offre Joie – 5,000 Liters
Beit El Baraka – 1,000 Liters
– Supporting generators with diesel oil for hospitals

Support for Lebanese Food Bank: AN IT GARAGE SALE WAS HELD FOR EMPLOYEES WITH ALL PROFITS GOING FOR THE LFB. We were able to sell all our unused laptops, desktops and other IT items for employees at an attractive price and donated all of the proceeds to the Lebanese Food Bank NGO that were used to provide more than 80 boxes that can feed families for a period of one month. Support for LRC: A DONATION OF 100,000 DOLLARS WAS DONATED BY L’OREAL LEVANT TO THE LEBANESE RED CROSS. A DONATION OF 100,000 EUROS WAS DONATED BY L’OREAL FOUNDATION TO UNICEF. Employee support: Financial and psychological support to all employees affected.

Indevco has taken initiatives on both the business level and the employee’s level.
Sanita distributed boxes of households, and 120,000 baby diapers to households and NGOs. Employees volunteered and distributed the boxes. A team from across the company have been collecting food items, clothes, household items and monetary donations.

As part of our community engagement and with the help of the Lebanese Business council in Abu Dhabi, Aramex has been in charge of moving 138 tones of glasses that covers 1000 houses, as well Last week we moved a full Flight Charter from cyprus to lebanon plenty of foods and essentials under aramex Name.
Another success chapter, the move of 1025 wooden doors by sailing. As well in collaboration with The Lebanese Business Council – Abu Dhabi.

Infopro provided office spaces, temporary document storage, temporary clerical tasks and backups; information and data needs and advertising consultancy servives for the small and meduim enterprises affected by the blast.

As a relief to our employees who have been affected by the blast, ITG Group has supported in the full repair of 25 households and still counting.
The group has contacted all staff members whose houses are located near the explosion site and neighbouring areas to assess the damages and support in any possible way to be get back what was lost. Even word of mouth amongst the teams has helped us evaluate people who needed support even with their families’ homes.
We have extended also moral support throughout the rough period and helped in the transportation of their furniture to other locations.
But as a first call, we have encouraged all our staff members to donate blood to Donner Sang Compter and contribute with the blood types needed following the explosion. We also called for volunteers to help the Lebanese citizens on ground to clean and help rebuild Beirut in hopes of a better future.

AUBMC Disaster Response to the August 4 Beirut Explosion Fund will be used to pay for the care of patients at our medical center who need financial assistance, for medical supplies, and for repairs at our medical center.

They worked with the Central Inspection and the Ministry of Interior to collect municipal data about vulnerable families and damage assessment. Also, the have been doing humanitarian action and they donated money to Red Cross and hospitals. He augmented the human labour of his company to give jobs to more people.

They sent a crew that helped cleaning the streets from day 1.

Stress relief for they people. They link stress and diet

Supporting Lebanon through thick and thin. Deloitte launched a global fundraising across Deloitte network to support those affected by the explosion. The money raised will go to The Lebanese Red Cross. They are supporting 10 000 families.

They have divided their scope of action into three areas: first, their employees; second, their direct local partners and 3rd parties; third, hospitals, NGOs and civil movements in general. Both for their employees and their partners, they are mainly relieving them with a solidarity fund and medical assistance. They have helped rebuilding more than 50 homes. In relation to hospitals, NGOs and civil movements, they are helping with funds, coordinating and matching needs and services from different actors and cleaning all the physical waste.

Recycling all the glass from the blast.

Students have been volunteering.

They provided volunteers the first days after the blast and they financially supported a school that was damaged.

Among their clients, they have hospitals: they ask these hospitals how we can help in their engineering issues, lowering Lebanese pound rate to 1,500 LBP. Their offices close to the port were completely destroyed.

Following the explosion that rocked Beirut on August 4, 2020, actions were carried out at different levels and several services provided: medical, legal, psychosocial, clearing – renovation – catering, meeting food and material needs. While USJ 5 campuses in Beirut, located within a radius of 2 to 12 km from the epicenter of the explosion were damaged USJ volunteer students helped clean up and remove debris from the campuses and the devastated area, especially the poor neighborhood of Quarantina.
The following initiatives were executed:
a. Health support
• The University Hospital Center Hotel Dieu de France received 750 people in the 24 following the blast, medical care and follow up, 100 people were admitted of which 11 in critical situation. 10 operation rooms were functioning the night of 4 -5 August
• The USJ offered free psychological and physiotherapy support to people affected by the blast
• The Laetitia Hatem Physical Rehabilitation Center at Hôtel-Dieu de France offers physiotherapy, occupational therapy, psychomotricity, speech therapy and aquatic therapy sessions to those injured in the Beirut explosion.
• Research on the quality of air post-explosion and recommendations to residents.

b. Assessment of needs
• We have put in place a call center located at the USJ Campus of Medical Sciences. Its job is to contact the students, professors and staff at the university and to inquire about their needs (over 3000 people contacted). We have provided the service with a phone number in order to redirect all calls and requests for assistance to a single source.
• From about 1500 USJ families whose homes were affected by the explosion, 95 called us asking for support in reconstruction. A team of engineers visited their houses, assessed their needs, and gave support in the reconstruction and repair.
• Assessment of engineers and international experts of the blast impact on historical buildings

c. Cleaning and debris removal
• Teams of young volunteers helped cleaning Beirut streets and tidy up houses. They also sorted 16 tons of glass into bags that are then being collected and recycled by partner NGOs.
• In collaboration with Diane Foundation, volunteers sorted 89 bags of plastic, cardboard, and nylon bags respectively and collected them using Diane Foundation trucks.

d. Distributions of food and resources
• Collection and distribution of all type of resources and materials to help over 1350 families in distress.
• Collecting food products in order to send to 400 families’ one box per family every month until December 2020.
• We have launched an initiative to cook and distribute around 400 hot meals every day until December 2020.
• Sandwich distributions in Mar Mikael, Gimayze and Karantina regions (total 4000)

e. Social networks
• We have created posters that are being shared on social networks so that we can broadcast our requests for donations and volunteers in a quicker and clearer way.
• We recruited more than 300 volunteers (65 present per day) and they stand ready to help with any request we send them.

In the aftermath of the Beirut Port explosion, teams of MUBS volunteers descended on the affected areas to respond to the needs of the families and citizens impacted by the tragic event. They were able to serve over 100 families at this time and are continuing to assist in providing medication and renovations in addition to food packages.

USEK helped Lebanese people in 6 ways:
1. Removing rubbles and assisting people and institutions to
have access to their premises. 2. Providing food boxes.
3. Providing medical assistance. 4. Offering 200 full scholarship to students who are
mostly affected by the blast. 5. Offering help and relief to small businesses to rebuild
and recover. 6. Offering free online “We’re Here to listen”
psychological sessions.

Around 500 boxes with food were distributed to the needy people all over Lebanon. In addition to that, scholarship campaigns are prepared to help the needy families in teaching their children.

Bank Audi has responded to the unfortunate Beirut blast in 5 different ways:
1. 16 colleagues volunteered for 100 hours with Arcenciel and Société de Saint Vincent de Paul on the ground in assessing, distributing and lending needed hands.
2. Blood Run, in collaboration with the Lebanese Red Cross
3. Food donation, about 60 kg, through the Lebanese Food Bank.
4. Cash donation to selected NGOs.
5. Forwarding the shattered glass to landfills by contributing to the collection, transportation and recycling of some estimated 5000 tons of glass that was shattered.

CL has provided exceptional loans to eligible SME, Corporate, and retail clients under the BDL circulars 547/552, allowing clients to reschedule their unpaid instalments for the months from March till July at 0 % over a period of 5 years. Several other borrowers have been sustained with easy and low priced rescheduling facilities and payment grace periods.
They are now also in the process of reviewing our existing borrowers requests that have been hit by the explosion and they will be assessed as per eligibility, for providing them with exceptional facilities under the recent BDL circular 152 at 0 % for the reconstruction purposes, based on the supportive documents required and in compliance with the terms of the circular.

The first initiative consisted in a fund of USD 100 million to help clients and non-clients rebuild their houses and offices or restore their equipment, a fast track loan with minimal collateral and administrative paperwork.
The second initiative aims to support Lebanese people and businesses.

Reconstructing the main warehouse of Spinneys in Daura thanks to a donor.

Tinol responded at different levels in the relief efforts during the first days after the blast, by providing food and crucial basic needs and helping out at the humanitarian level. With time, and in order to collaborate on the rebuilding efforts, they designed a tailored offer whereby a part of the paints they provide is offered free of charge and the remainder at cost price. There is, needless to say, a structured vetting procedure that goes with it.

Their engineers are working with Lebanese army

Helping the municipality in a specific area that was assigned to them to assess the damage suffered there.

They volunteered teams of specialized façade and structural engineers to support the Beirut Municipality in surveying damages in a number of affected areas. Their tasks included assessing hazards and risks and identifying and classifying buildings with heritage value. Dar also used its international platform and connections to set up a fundraising and awareness campaign that directly transfers donations from donors to independent and non-affiliated NGOs working on the ground in Beirut. These NGOs include the Lebanese Red Cross, Arcenciel, Beit El Baraka, Impact Lebanon, and Solidarity.

They have been assessing damages of houses with NRC and then they will proceed to provide some relief.

They have been helping with the cleaning during the first 15 days with around 150 people every day. They suffered physical damage.

Malia Group’s response to the Beirut Blast revolves around 4 different areas:
1. Financial support to employees to fix home/car damages.
2. Financial support to clients who suffered from heavy material damage by offsetting part of the receivables or offering free products.
3. Financial support to hospitals and schools to help rebuild the damaged infrastructure.
4. Financial support to NGOs to help them execute their missions.

BAU is taking a leading role in backing its community under “Together We Rise Again” initiative. The initiative revolves around two pillars: civic engagement and health sector. Under the civic engagement activities, BAU volunteers supported the UN Habitat and the Faculty of Architecture at BAU participated with a survey of the damaged buildings in Beirut. A research unit from the faculty of engineering conducted a site observation and damage assessment of the wheat silos in Beirut port. Alongside, with health care series of activities, BAU launched a psycho-socio unit and BAUHC center is providing a range of primary health services for the damaged people.

A charitable campaign offering support in the form of in-kind donations and on-ground work/support for those who have been hardest hit. NDU community is taking part in the following lines of support: non-perishable foods, everyday household items and clothes.
The NDU Alumni Association is joining forces with their alma mater in taking an active role in the NDU Bridging Hearts campaign. The funds collected from their online donations will be used in support of Beirut restoration and education.
Finally, NDU has partnered with the NGO Ecoserve to collect e-waste from the damaged areas in Beirut. Electronic waste (old phones, TVs, computers etc.) can be extremely hazardous and poses a serious danger if not properly disposed of.
NDU is willing as well to provide help and support in the Education Pillar; on the medium and long run, they will be disposing a group of experts from its faculties and partners. They will be helping schools, educators and HEI to sustain amid the disaster and continue providing “quality education” to all students all over Lebanon

LAU Student Club has been volunteering in the streets and in hospitals since the first few days of the blast. Their medical center has been severely damaged and they are currently collecting donations. Despite their damage, LAUMC has launched an initiative aiming to offer facial reconstruction to injured people.

AUB students have participated in reconstructing damaged buildings and stores as well as joining food donation drives.