Lighthouse Peace Initiative Corp

Lighthouse Peace Initiative Corp. (LPI Corp) is non-profit organization dedicated to raising the quality of life for the most vulnerable Syrian, Lebanese and Palestinian teens and young adults living in the Bekaa Valley, Lebanon. Our primary programs are educational and artistic, with community support at their core. We believe in providing a safe space for the youth and uplifting their spirits through individualized and communal care regardless of their nationality, ethnicity and gender. In the Bekaa Valley, there are a growing number of dis-satisfied and under-educated youth. Their future is extremely uncertain for many, with boys forced to work as laborers at an early age and girls having to enter into marriage. Most NGOs operating in the Bekaa Valley are focusing on children and women, meaning what aid there is does little to address adolescents' needs and growing frustration. Manara Center establishes a center geared specifically towards teenagers and young adults. Combining theater, filmmaking, music, art, language technology, sports and vocational training along with professional psycho-social support and inspirational leadership we are creating a space for those who are most left behind, and those to whom the future depends, to work together in inspiring each other towards a life beyond war, labour and the confines of a settlement. The Manara Center is located in Bar Elias, which is in the Center of the Bekaa Valley and has the largest concentration of Syrian refugees in the region. Combining under one roof a diverse range of professionally run programs in music, art, theater, interior design, first aid and vocational training programs, we aim not only to provide a much needed safe space away from the everyday confines of settlement life, but also enable and inspire their own passions constructively through vocational and technological training.