"For a Brighter Future"

Losing a child is perhaps the most devastating blow that can be imagined for a family.
All credit to the family of Karim Rayess then for setting up the Tamanna charitable foundation in 2005 to celebrate his short life. The aim of the foundation is simple – turning tears into laughter. It’s a sort of latter day “Jim’ll fix it” for kids who are seriously ill, and they’ve persuaded the British singer James Blunt to give a charity concert at Biel on 27th June, tickets available from Virgin. How have they done that? Well, because a child expressed the wish to see him sing!
Announced at the start of the British Lebanese Business Group’s meeting last Tuesday, it’s being strongly supported by the British Embassy here, as an initiative from a local foundation and as a British cultural event.
Which led us neatly (you'll see why) on to our main speaker, Bashra Salha, who gave us an exposition of the work of an organisation, the British Lebanese Association, set up in the UK during the Civil War by concerned Lebanese living there and British Friends to promote cultural links between the two countries. As a by-product, it has generated money for charities since its inception.
Again, the focus for benefit is the young, and specifically through education. For example, there is a Scholarship Fund for assisting Lebanese young men and women pursue post-graduate courses in Britain and direct assistance to Arc-en-Ciel, who are integrating disabled children into mainstream schools here in Lebanon.
Fund-raising has so far been exclusively in Britain, but this year will spread to Lebanon for the first time.
More details can be found on www.britishlebanese.org and www.arcenciel.org
So our meeting this time was not for planning, and money and facts but to provide us all with the opportunity to reflect on the most important of activities for those of us lucky enough to have achieved some standing in life – to pass our knowledge and wisdom (such as it might be) onto the next generation, and across the spectrum from those with obvious ability and talent and to those whose start has been less fortunate.
And so to the title of this little piece - it's the slogan of the British Lebanese Association's flagship fundraising event this year. A concept, however, with mulitple applications, and even useable in the worst imaginable situations.