Development

Ecotourism

JUROUDNA [Aqoura, Jbeil] – 2024
Jouroudna is a new community-owned on-going project initiated by Nawraj. It aims at promoting primarily, heritage, religious and eco-tourism, agri-food, in a geographic zone covering a cluster of villages including: Aqoura, Qartaba and Mejdel Aqoura.

Aqoura ecotourism presentation meeting
First working session on ecotourism in Aqoura and surrounding villages organized by Nawraj to promote local businesses and create employment opportunities in the region.

SAWA

"SAWA Development SAL" ("sawa" means "together" in Arabic) is a Lebanese company specifically created for the economic and social development of villages with a mixed Druze and Christian population.

A Social Enterprise
SAWA’s objective is to encourage these two communities, which have clashed several times in the past, to work together by creating inter-community safety nets based on common socio-economic interests. This sustainable development project thus consolidating peaceful coexistence and in the Chouf mountain, Aley, Baabda, Rachaya and Hasbaya villages, Two initiatives developed by “Sawa” as pilot projects aims to enhance coexistence between the Druze and Christian communities: ecological charcoal oven production, honey production and lavender plantation in Chbanieh and Kahlounieh.

Agri-food

MEJDEL EL MEOUCH [Chouf, Mount Lebanon] - 2022
An agri-food initiative targeting a cluster of 12 mountainous villages, with the support of l’Œuvre d’Orient

• Maintaining free schooling
• Ensuring food sufficiency in deprived rural areas
• Creating job opportunities
• Preventing rural exodus

Outputs

• 25,000m2 of land offered by Mar Maroun Monastery to the community
• 900 avocado trees planted
• 3 jobs created that will increase to 10 [during harvesting season and the operation in the supply chain [handling, distribution and sales]
• Irrigation system installed
• Food processing machines to produce tomato paste and grind thyme [widely used in Lebanese cuisine]
• Eco-friendly furnace to produce charcoal ensured [widely used in households, particularly for barbecues]

Producing tomato paste

An ecological furnace to produce charcoal

Solar Energy for Well Pump

Reconstruction

KHRAYBEH [Akkar, North Lebanon] - 2016
Mass reconstruction master plan of the village with the assistance of Université Saint-Esprit de Kaslik (USEK)
Preservation of the vestiges of the medieval church Our Lady of Derbeya (800 AD)Khraybeh is a Christian village that was entirely ravaged by the war in 1975 and emptied from its population. The Lebanese authorities did not include this village and its inhabitants in the reconstruction plan and compensation funds for the displaced established at the end of the war.
NAWRAJ initiated with USEK, a mass rebuilding master plan and technical drawings

• 50 houses and shops were rebuilt
• The village infrastructure was rehabilitated

Khraybeh, a village ravaged by war

Reconstruction of Sarah’ shop in Khraybeh