As people are struggling to find basic necessities like food, medicine, and shelter, a charity organization took it upon itself to help fill in the gaps left by an absent government.
Created by Abdallah Khatab in December of last year, Charity Hub groups several NGOs and initiatives under one roof.
It started off as a unique and uncommon idea of being a linkage between different organizations to provide Beirut Blast relief aid, but it quickly worked its way up the ladder of the nonprofit sector.
Today, Charity Hub is an organization that provides medical supplies, distributes electric appliances and food packages, and offers free psychological therapy sessions in collaboration with Nehna Haddak.
As Lebanon’s humanitarian crisis is getting worse, Charity Hub has tripled its efforts and increased its partnerships to make sure no member of the society is left begging for food, medicine, or shelter.
Just one day following the announcement of lifting subsidies on baby milk, on June 12th, Charity Hub teamed up with Beit El Baraka, Kelna 3ayleh, and Frontline Engineers to provide cans of milk to parents of newly born children in its Clemenceau headquarters, in Beirut.
With the help of a group of volunteers, the hub managed to distribute more than 6,000 cans of baby milk (ages 0-3) to 3,150 families that could not get milk to their children, either due to financial reasons or because they are nearly impossible to find.
The Charity Hub is even doing more than that. Earlier in June, it organized beach cleanups across several coastal cities along the Lebanese shore, joined by scuba divers.
“The more problems arise, the more we try our best to find solutions. What we do is extremely rewarding,” Abdallah Khatab told The961. “What people fail to realize is what goes on behind the scenes for such a big event,” he added.
“We have to assess the specific needs for the targeted people, figure out the filing process, figure out how to manage relations to get supplies, audit the supplies being distributed in order to avoid theft and duplication, and find a plan to pay hospitals for medical supplies,” he explained. “There is a whole team of experienced personnel who dedicate their time and efforts just to manage these issues.”
Charity Hub, alongside a plethora of NGOs scattered all over Lebanon, is working day and night to try and minimize the heavy cost of the crisis on Lebanese families.
However, as the economic crisis worsens by the day under the complete absence of governmental intervention, there is only so much that charity organizations can do.