Lebanon has fallen into war for 35 years out of the last 50. Lebanon has rarely been to war, but war has come to Lebanon over and over again, either from its neighbors or from the sectarian infighting that has torn the country apart for decades.

During our mission in the field in 2024, when our first intervention in Lebanon in support of humanitarian actors began, we discovered a population in dire need of sustainable and scalable solutions, worn out by surgical temporary interventions that reduce predictability for a better future.

Lebanon is a failed state. A country facing all possible crises at the same time: the aftermath of the Beirut explosion, a sectarian crisis between religious militias, a political crisis, an economic crisis, a financial crisis that has seen a 171% inflation, a refugee crisis from both Palestine and Syria and war in the South.

With virtually no state budget, until just a few months ago, the government operated for years only one day per week and all basic services were covered by local or international NGOs. Most of the public servants who still showed up for work essentially volunteered to keep the country running, while also doing any other job they could to earn a living.

From the most iconic buildings of the country to every block of flats, destruction has visited Beirut and Lebanon more than any other place in the world, cursed to rise over and over again from their ashes. It is within this landscape that life continues to unfold, under a constant pressure of what tomorrow may bring.

In many places, nature has taken over the buildings that stand tall as witnesses of the hardship their inhabitants have been through.

"He'll live, but with a bullet." Twenty years later, the bullet is still there. I have gotten used to the foreign body that resides in my own body. Removing it wouldn't change anything - the war inhabits me in any case.

[Alexandre Najjar - The School of War]

Every single person in Lebanon carries memories of real-life events that many of us are lucky to have never even had to imagine.

Survival and growth are very different here, where the uncertainty of the next day is a constant for everyone. This is the reality faced by the displaced population in the country, regardless of whether they were in the South, the North, or roaming the streets of their astonishing capital, Beirut.

This photo was taken in July 2024 in a shelter organized inside a school in the South of Lebanon. Families are hosted in former classrooms and have done their best to turn their spaces into homes to feel less separated from their former lives.

Many of the refugees speak of the moment when they left their villages and cities and how they constantly seek to know whether their houses are still standing or what has happened with their relatives and friends.

One day I fell in love with a boy who was in love with birds. He could recognize them from their songs. I was telling this to my friend Ali and he told me he could also recognize the different sounds of bombs falling on Beirut.

[Jana Traboulsi - Safir Newspaper, 2005]

Being in shelters does not mean that people are completely safe from war. The areas they are located in can become targets at any moment, and everyone is aware of it, always paying attention, always listening while going about their day.

Organisations in the field are ready at any moment to relocate people to other emergency shelters should it be necessary.

Nusaned is a non-profit organisation that works across the entire country, trying to ensure resources for shelters, to enhance the chances of communities to gain sustainability through voucher programmes, training and aid delivered through mechanisms meant to stimulate the little local economy that still exists.

They are an incredible example of courage and creativity, turning every programme into a chance for a better life for thousands of people. We work with their team to create systems that can assess needs in the population to improve aid delivery, shelter reconstruction and to reduce the time and resources spent on filed operations. These systems can be scaled and reused in other crisis areas around the world.

It was during the war that I learned to appreciate the value of water. Waiting in line with an empty can, I came to understand that it is as vital as the blood that runs through our veins. Before the war, I used to waste water recklessly; I did not think it was of any value. I scorned the odorless, colourless liquid and, to be honest, I preferred soda or alcoholic drinks. One day, at the height of the fighting, the water disappeared from our faucets.

[Alexandre Najjar - The School of War]

The shelters bring together people from all over Lebanon and the surrounding countries. But also outside the shelters, one of the most critical needs is access to medical donations. We are building a system to track and distribute these vital items according to the needs on the ground and make sure nothing goes to waste in the scarcity that governs the whole country.

"Do you remember your first corpse?" Uncle Michel talks about my first corpse as if it were my first kiss.

"Yes. I was nine."

[Alexandre Najjar - The School of War]

Many organisations in Lebanon are focused on crafting better chances for the younger generation. Anera, a non-profit organization based in Beirut, is training hundreds of young adults from vulnerable communities to help them access better jobs and opportunities.

Other organizations are focused on providing mental health services and support and together we are working on scaling our digital tools for PTSD help and other systems in the region.

These trials have given me a new understanding of happiness. A day without bombings, a bridge that isn't under sniper siege, a night without a blackout, a road without barricades, a clear sky across which no rockets shoot... for me all of this will henceforth be synonymous with happiness.

[Alexandre Najjar - The School of War]

Danger seems to have been removed from the usual vocabulary for all the heroes who try every single day to bring relief to those in need. NGOs across Lebanon make sure as many people as possible have access to medication, basic items, medical services, education, and safer housing. Despite the threats they face, all of these humanitarian workers are in the field every day, from one vulnerable community to another, to bridge the gap between disaster and safety. Our digital infrastructure can immensely enhance their capacity.

Since 2025, this wall has become more impenetrable than ever. In Tijuana and across Mexico, tens of thousands of migrants are suspended in a prolonged state of waiting, hoping for asylum in the United States, a prospect that now feels unreachable. With no viable path forward and no safe option to return home, many are forced to remain and attempt to re-build their lives where they are. Some flee poverty and the absence of basic services, many others are escaping violence and imminent danger. As hopes of reaching the United States diminish, more people turn their eyes toward alternative destination countries.

This uncertainty has fueled a new and deeply troubling phenomenon: the rise of online and offline scammers who exploit desperation, demanding large sums of money in exchange for false promises of documents and safe passage.

Some people have been deported back to Mexico after decades of living in the United States.

His hope is to be reunited with his family, who remain on the other side of the wall. Before 2025, this could mean weeks or a few months, but now the idea of being allowed to go back seems almost impossible. Just like him, many spend their nights in the shelters ["albergues"] and the days looking for work and trying to earn a minimum living to be able to continue to benefit from a warm bed.

The 32 shelters in Tijuana try to ensure that every single person in need of help, regardless of where they come from, is being accommodated and supported in these difficult times in their lives.

The spaces, however, are small, crowded, and can almost never ensure proper conditions for all the specific needs. For migrants with disabilities, it is even more difficult to find a place that can provide the minimum level of accessibility they would need.

Even so, the community always finds a way to help everyone have a roof above their heads and a minimum of comfort.

No two shelters are alike. Some are lucky to have beds, some create "micro-rooms" out of bunk beds tied together, and a group of two or three bunk beds can host a larger family if it is allowed. Otherwise, the rule is that women and children sleep separately from men. Other shelters are just former yards, with improvised roofs where tents are nested one next to the other so that families can sleep together and have a minimum level of privacy.

Today almost all shelters in Tijuana are connected through "Un techo" (One Roof) the shelter management system we have deployed for free in Mexico. The platform allows migrants to find available spaces in shelters and NGOs to better coordinate and refer migrants securely from a shelter to another. We are also supporting the organizations that need it with a website builder that helps them collect donations to continue to afford paying for food and monthly bills.

Because of the lack of space, the amount of personal items one can hold in a shelter is minimal. At times you are not allowed to have more than a suitcase and another bag because there is simply not enough space for everything.

Many shelters are temporary, which means that you have to check in and check out every single day, therefore, having to always carry your belongings is an immense burden for them.

This image is taken in a night shelter where people check in every day after 4 pm to spend the night before heading out to try to find any work to help them survive.

In Tijuana, there are five different shelters dedicated to the LGBTQ+ community. Casita UT is a shelter supporting trans women with accommodation and access to continuous services.

In another shelter, Jardin de Mariposas, Jamie hosts members of the community. She returned to Mexico after 23 years spent working for the Municipality of New York and is now in charge of this shelter that used to be managed by her mother.

The challenges they are facing are bigger and bigger since most of the donors that used to support these communities are now afraid to continue their aid programmes due to restrictions and political backlash.

In almost every shelter, on the walls, there are posters with missing people. The Commission for Missing People from Baja California tries to reunite people with their families and search for missing persons all across the state. Now this work is being done only in the field, and with the help of a social media page, trying to collect critical data.

This is an example of a poster placed on the door of a men’s shelter in Tijuana in the hope that anyone who has information about any of the missing people here will help the commission find them and reunite them with their families.

For the first time, they will have a digital solution to support them in broadcasting their messages and search bulletins, and better collect the information from the shelters.

Most shelters are connected to churches, and the aid has been coming from the local community for more than a year now, since almost all funding has been halted both by the US Government and by the local one.

The shelters are managed by volunteers, and many of the migrants self-organise with cleaning, kitchen shifts, security, and much more. For migrants, it is a way through which they try to ensure sustainability and care for the spaces that shelter them, as well as for each other.

Centro32 is an organisation providing free mental health services to migrants.

The Baby Bus is just one of their projects where they have reconditioned a bus they park in front of the shelters for mothers with very young children to come in and take part in group therapy activities, educational workshops, and to find a bit more relief.

The need for resources and scaling power is immense, especially when it comes to such services that bring relief to those who could never afford this much-needed support. We are working with Centro32 to deploy for them a case management system to better manage their beneficiaries and streamline their work.

Hidden in spaces where you have at times even 2.000 people living together, where privacy, safety, and predictability seem luxuries, where services can be discontinued at any given moment and with no clarity on what the future holds, people still dare to believe in a better world for all of them. “Otros mundos son posibles” (Other Worlds Are Possible) stands as a reminder that we all deserve the right to a decent future.