All Brands teams up with Caritas

Now that is a good news. All Brands, a popular outlet store in Lebanon is teaming up with Caritas in an operation called "All Brands, w enta, w Caritas" (All Brands, and you, and Caritas). The principle is simple, people bring in their old clothes, donate them on the special Christmas donation booth - granted people get 15% discount on new items by doing so. 

Well should you think that suck clothes collecting initiatives do not work, Fabricaid has its giant collecting boxes filled to the brim. Mind you with FabricAID you don't get discounts or anything. But mind you with Lebanon being in such an incredibly bad state, being a cohesive and helping unit won't hurt anyone. And even very minimalist people like me, who barely buy anything still end up with things that grew too big for them etc. So here's hoping the All Brands initiative will be the success it deserves especially that Caritas has always been very active with the needy on the ground.

Christmas? What Christmas?

Artwork by Tarek Chemaly from the series "Lebanon's history"

2020 just claimed its latest casualty - Christmas. No, no, am not inventing some "war on Christmas" as right-wingers love to pretend in the US. Really, nothing looks like Christmas. Sure, you might say it has been so for a few years. But that is not true, everyone was still capable of entering the mood - merchants played the game, fake snow was on the shop windows, santas were in malls, animations for kids, you know - the whole she bang. Oh, and advertising on the billboards, quite a few advertising on the billboards not only for Christmas, but mainly for New Year's Even in restaurants and hotels, even if last year it was mainly C and D listers.

But this year, it is full blown crisis. A perfect storm on all fronts. Sure, we put Christmas trees with flickering lights in our houses. But between the coronavirus (with people avoiding visits), and the general mood of tiredness, disillusion, and all around defeatism after a truly horrible year on several levels - be it economic, political, personal, oh and add an explosion which ranked sixth largest accidental explosions - definitely no one is in the mood to "celebrate".

The weather is still clement at this stage, which is oddly positive as many people no longer have roofs above their heads - both metaphorically and literally. The percentage of poverty has increased sporadically due to the severe devaluation of the currency. And understandably, no one has the strength to play-pretend anymore.

Not sure if these can count as silver linings, but there indeed many initiatives to care about the people, from the people (Beit El Baraka and FabricAid come to mind, and am sure there are others...). I am not defending our government's total haphazard response from top to bottom (not sure anyone has a plan, no matter how vague!), but that regular people are stepping up to the plate where no one else did is truly impressive and commendable. In the end, now is the time to agglomerate as a population and to stand by one another.

Weirdly, if this is not what Christmas is all about, then I wonder what is.

FabricAID the timely initiative in Lebanon.

I am not someone prone to easy superlatives, but without any doubt the crisis currently hitting Lebanon and affecting people so totally drastically is one for the books (notice I did not say "unprecedented"). Still, if this is not the time to stand by one another, then I wonder when is? FabricAID is a great initiative, which gathers clothes and resells them at an abysmally low price to people in need.we all have pieces. We lost or gained weight, we made impulse buys, we grabbed something as a retail therapy and the list continues.... The FabricAID bins are strategically placed and as their ad says "little can become a lot".... Visit their site here.