Reviewed file photo — Our Lady of Ras Baalbek Convent; local community context, not the Saints-Cœurs school. Photo: mharfouche / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 4.0)
French charity backs Saints-Cœurs school in Ras Baalbek as families struggle
Chrétienté-Solidarité sponsors more than 50 pupils at the Christian school, with a French twin town by its side.
The French association Chrétienté-Solidarité has made its second visit this year to the Saints-Cœurs school in Fakiha, Ras Baalbek, in the northern Bekaa, according to its communiqué published by Le Salon Beige and Presse Agence.
The association says it sponsors more than 50 pupils at the school and nearly 80 in the Ras Baalbek and Qaa area. The visit came with a delegation from Camaret-sur-Aygues, in France's Vaucluse, which is twinned with Ras Baalbek. One of its councillors met, for the first time, the girl she sponsors.
Visitors praised Sister Randa and her teachers. Each school day opens with the Lebanese national anthem and a prayer, and lessons include spiritual formation and physical development, the communiqué said.
It warned that the heavy financial difficulties of families and of the school threaten its future, and appealed for sponsors: 200 euros a year pays for one child's schooling, according to the association.
Ras Baalbek and Qaa are Christian towns on Lebanon's north-eastern edge. Keeping their schools open is one of the surest ways to keep families there.
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