Kfarhedla, Lebanon North
September 16, 2017
The situation
Tom Makdissy, 24, is a young inspiring architect living in Kfarhelda, a village north of Lebanon. Tom also happens to be the Live Love Kfarhelda ambassador. His village is home to stunning waterfalls.
But, the reality was heartbreaking

Tom showed us that the site was filled with tons of trash. Lebanon's in the midst of a garbage crisis. And many of its natural sites are suffering.
So we posted this on Live Love Beirut
Asking people to come help us clean this site. Press play below to watch the video.
Little did we know, on September 16th 2017, over 170 people from all regions, religions, ages & backgrounds drove hours to join us and the young habitants of the village to help clean the natural site.
They created a human chain to carry the trash bags
from the bottom of the valley to the top of the waterfall. 3,550 trash bags were filled. 70% of the volunteers were young women.
Their feet were soaked in the water. They separated plastic from glass, from waste. Everything was distributed to recycling facilities.
So the same night, we posted this on Live Love Beirut.
Press play.
There was a girl looking high at the waterfall with her eyes misted with tears of regret for what human beings have done to nature. But everyone took action, we didn't grieve a lot, because we knew that this was about to change. A girl and a guy stepped straight into the water with all their clothes and another started distributing bag. Another person started creating new ideas of collecting trash efficiently and effectively.

Everyone worked equally hard, even the youngest volunteer who I would say was around (6-7 years old) worked along side her mom for 8 straight hours. To get the trash bags back to the steep risky heights into the Crain, we had to gather in chain and at some point hanging only with a rope to transfer more than 3200 big blue bags of trash. It sounded a lot and we thought we would never finish, but we did, because we all worked heart fully and were well guided , organized, and motivated by the amazing team of "Live Love Beirut" , " Live Love Kfarhelda" and Kfarhelda's Municipality's men.

When we were done, we took a look back at the waterfalls, and we all secretly felt that the waterfalls we're giving us their gratitude in their own special way. It was the first time many of us felt nature the way they did at that moment.

By the end of the day, our sense of belonging to our county grew bigger. We understood the meaning of "all becoming one" despite our differences and backgrounds. After 8 hours of hard work, a new kind of family emerged.

Tarek S
Live Love Volunteer
Cleaning Day in Partnership With
  • The Municipality of Kfarhelda
    Supporting the help of Live Love
  • Sohat
    Providing us all the cleaning supplies and support.
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To help us create more events like this one, please buy a bracelet. Proceeds will help fund more volunteer actions targeting our 3 pillars: Nature, Community and Culture.
Let's protect our nature, our earth, our love. Together. It is a moral imperative to act upon such sight.
The Live Love Beirut Team
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