How handmade briquettes are fueling fires and memories in Lebanon
Germany is funding hundreds of livelihoods projects in Lebanon, all designed to develop skills among vulnerable populations with the ambition of boosting future employment opportunities.
The past and the present
As a teenager, Ghassan visited Lebanon’s Chouf forests on a long summer family holiday. He has vivid memories of day-long picnics and football matches in forests with piles of pine cones as goalposts. He and his cousins roasted birds on small fires they lit at sunset and left to crackle through the night as they fell asleep beneath the star-lit sky.
Fifteen years later, Ghassan returned to the same hillside beside the sleepy town of Baakline that he once visited. This time he came with his wife and two sons, but not as tourists. Now they are refugees.
In 2013, they fled Idlib in search of peace. With no idea where to go, Ghassan recalled the place he felt safe as a child — Lebanon’s Chouf. And so they continued, by bus, by taxi and by foot. After an arduous two week voyage, the weary family settled on a hillside studded with cedar and pine trees, far far away from the strife in Syria.
A job, a lifeline
Ghassan was a busy taxi driver back in Syria and found adjusting to his new rural life challenging to begin with. “There’s a slower pace here,” he explained, “but we like it now. We just want to live a simple life and go home when it’s safe.”
That simple life is now mostly spent outdoors as Ghassan is one of 26 participants in a project run by the World Food Progamme’s (WFP) partner, Al Chouf Cedar Society (ACS). He is paid by ACS for each day of work on their forest clearing and briquette production project. The activities are varied and include trimming dead branches, collecting fallen tree debris, compressing matter into cylinders and drying them out in specially built aerators.
This is one of over 350 WFP livelihoods projects either completed or underway in Lebanon. They are entirely funded by Germany’s Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ). Each one of those projects was designed in collaboration with local municipalities and with the objective of transferring skills which can be used by participants in future employment.
A typical day
“I was worried when my second son Sami was born, but now I can provide for him,” Ghassan says. The money that he earns is mostly spent on food for the family.
A typical day involves both thinning and clearing forests, of which Lebanon has plenty, and compressing that biomass into briquettes, which can be used for fuel and kindling. ACS sells these to locals and the workers, including Ghassan, are producing a staggering 200 tonnes of briquettes and 200 tonnes of compost in each annual cycle.
“We only have one planet…I am positive I’ll find a job working with my Syrian trees soon.”
Ghassan recognises the importance of maintaining a minimal footprint. “We only have one planet,” he explained. He is also conscious that he is living as a foreigner in Lebanon and wants to show gratitude for Lebanon’s hospitality. Ghassan explains that he is doing precisely that by helping manage Lebanon’s biosphere.
As the conflict continues, livelihoods projects like these are invaluable. Many members of the displaced community are losing skills and opportunities to find work, to get by and to care for their families. They need jobs when they return to Syria as well as temporary employment until that can happen. After all, “there are plenty of forests there and I am positive I’ll find a job working with my Syrian trees soon,” explained Ghassan.
Greener and cleaner
The benefits of this project are numerous — he and other Lebanese and Syrian participants have a steady income now, there will be fewer forest fires thanks to well-managed forest floors, and the area has a sustainable natural and cheap fuel source.
With no relevant experience, the learning curve was steep for Ghassan and he says his first week was tough. But that is the point, “I am here to learn,” he proudly admitted.
When asked about the future, Ghassan first mentioned Lebanon — it will be a greener and cleaner place he explained. And then he mentioned his sons. He hopes that one day they will return to the Chouf with memories of green spaces, a father who provided and the endless nights by the fire in their rural home, fueled of course by his hand-made briquettes.
Read more about WFP’s work in Lebanon.
