Tag Archives | children

Giveaway Day 6 – Surprise Gift from Early Learning Centre

Today’s giveaway is once again aimed at parent readers and mainly the ones with very young children. Early Learning Centre is on-board to provide a gift for one lucky reader, and as was the case with JouéClub, the gift will be determined to suit the age of the winner’s kid.

What I love most about ELC is that they have a lot of toys made of wood among their wide product range that serve to develop the child’s motor skills, in addition to being made in a way to withstand bumps and collision since toddlers just have a thing for throwing everything anywhere. (At least mine does!)

To qualify for the draw, go to +961’s page on Facebook, like the giveaway post and tag your friends in a comment. One winners will be randomly chosen and announced tomorrow morning, and I will make sure to coordinate with ELC in order to choose the right toy depending on his/her kid’s age.

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Ton Amie Liliane is Coming Back For One Last Performance

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If you grew up in Lebanon in the ’80s then Liliane Karam (AKA Ton Amie Liliane) must have played a good role in your childhood!

Back then kids shows were not abundantly aired like today so we used to eagerly wait for them on the available TV stations every afternoon, and among the shows and cartoon series I used to watch at that time “Ton Amie Liliane” was my favorite. I think the only other show that came close to it was “Kif W Leish” with DéDé in the ’90s.

A couple of days ago I came across this cool news on Annahar reporting that she is currently collaborating with her daughter Lara Rain to prepare for a new play that will start showing on time for Christmas on Platea theater Jounieh before moving to other Arab countries and Canada.

So if you have kids, let it be your excuse to go re-live old memories since Liliane will be performing some of her old songs, and it will also be an opportunity to let them get a glimpse of what we used to enjoy when we were young! I personally will get my little kid a ticket once they’re out for sale.

ANNONCE SURPRISE:
Bientôt, je chanterai cette chanson sur scène pour vous!
Décembre 2016 va être magique!!

A mon ami* …votre chanson préférée, et une des miennes aussi <3

Posted by Ton Amie Liliane on Sunday, October 9, 2016

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Australian 60 Minutes Show Crew Arrested for Documenting Children Abduction in Beirut

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News outlets reported yesterday morning that two kids were kidnapped in Hadath by gunmen while waiting for the school bus with their grandmother. As hours went by, the police claimed that their Australian mother was behind the whole thing since she was separated from the father and the two were apparently fighting over the custody of the kids.

Such affairs are not unusual in Lebanon and they sometimes get eventually settled between the parents at a police station, but I was quite surprised this morning to read that it wasn’t really that simple as it turned out the mother planned the abduction in coordination with some private child recovery agency from Australia that helps recover parentally abducted children, and wanted to get them out of Lebanon through the sea to Cyrprus. And it doesn’t end here, she even got the Australian 60 Minutes show involved to film the whole operation as it happens.

The Lebanese police however uncovered the whole thing and ended up arresting the abductors and 60 Minutes crew including presenter Tara Brown (the Australian media is currently buzzing about it by the way) while the mother managed to escape to the Australian embassy along with her children.

I’m not sure how legal this children recovery thing and if journalists are even allowed to document such operations, but it definitely sounds baffling! Let’s see how things will unfold for those in custody right now.

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TSC Lebanon is Now Offering Children Free Fruits

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In order to encourage children to eat healthy, TSC Lebanon just announced on their Facebook page today that they will start offering each kid one piece of fruit to snack on while shopping with their parents. And for that purpose, fruit baskets will be available at the entrance of both TSC Achrafieh and TSC Signature (Beirut Souks).

The initiative is certainly not new as I have lately read about the same moves made by grocery stores in the US and Europe, still you can’t but salute TSC for it.

As a parent, I always find myself buying my 2 year-old son some biscuits to keep him busy while my wife and I do our shopping, but a banana or an apple would definitely be better for him.

Let’s hope they extend this offer to their other branches in Zouk and Jnah as I know a lot of parents are going to appreciate it!

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Five Things The Good Note Initiative is Missing

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If you haven’t heard about it yet, The Good Note is a new initiative by Bou Khalil Supermarket aiming to give the children on the streets the essentials they need without funding the adults who sent them out to the streets and might be abusing them.

The idea is to sell small vouchers worth 1,000L.L each that can only be redeemed at Bou Khalil for necessities and small treats or at Pharmalife pharmacy in Hazmieh. You’re of course supposed to keep these vouchers in your wallet to give them to the child you may encounter on the street so that they can buy the stuff they really need, and this way you make sure you’re actually giving them responsibly.

The initiative is definitely good and plausible, I personally usually avoid giving child beggars any money because I know it will end up in the wrong hands, and always prefer to give them any food I might have instead. However, after giving a second thought about The Good Note it sounded a bit unpractical for the following reasons.

  1. Explaining the idea to children

    I know we get stuck in traffic for a good time in Beirut, but sometimes you have so little time to give children the voucher and explain to them it isn’t fake and that they can really redeem it at a certain supermarket. Judging by how these children behave, I doubt they will believe it and will most probably end up throwing away the vouchers.

  2. Branch locations

    Assuming a child was convinced to go redeem a voucher, Bou Khalil has only one branch in Beirut (Koraytem) and going all the way from Achrafieh, Bechara El Khoury, or Mazraa for example doesn’t really seem cost effective to me in order to redeem a vouhcer, two or three.
    Other branches nearby Beirut are located in Hazmieh, Hadath, and Mansourieh.

  3. How much are you willing to give?

    Seriously now, how much are willing to give a child beggar? I personally never gave them more than 1,000L.L. So these children will have to wait until they collect a good number of these vouchers before making a trip to the supermarket to buy the necessities they need.

  4. What happens to the change?

    Say a child bought goods worth 2,250L.L, what happens to the remaining 750L.L? The website claims the voucher cannot be redeemed for real money.

  5. The  generated profit

    The website claims the generated profit from the sales of these good notes will go to an NGO that works to care for street and working children in Lebanon. It isn’t clear though whether the exact voucher value or the profit generated after completing a sales transaction will be donated to the NGO, but I think it is most probably the latter, which seems very little money to me…
    It also wasn’t clear what would happen to the value of the vouchers that get thrown away and end up never used, which will result in pure profit for Bou Khalil alone.

I really don’t want Bou Khalil to hate on me because of this post, but it is our right to question such initiatives. In my opinion, Bou Khalil could have simply offered people to purchase any goods they want and deposit them in a box at the exit and street children will then be free to enter into the supermarket and pick the items they need the most (it can be limited to 2 items per day).

COOP Supermarkets also started a good initiative a while ago allowing customers to pay an extra 1,500L.L for a pack of bread to be available at the entrance for anyone who might be in need.

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Some fact checking never hurts

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Some news editor at elnashra.com must have stumbled upon this old satire article about human meat that has been found in one of McDonald’s meat factories in Oklahoma and decided to make a story out of it!

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This isn’t the first time a Lebanese news outlet mistakes satirical news for real, but I can’t believe editors still do this with Google being one click away from them. A simple search reveals that this story actually first originated from the fake news website Huzlers.com and then started making rounds on social media websites.

Some fact and source checking never hurt!

On a side note, my favorite burger at McDonald’s has been the “Big Tasty” for a while now!

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Lebanese children and discrimination

This is one of the saddest videos I’ve seen lately. And while it’s no surprise that in 2014 we’re still living in a discriminating society, the stuff that these kids have said are just quite shocking and should serve as a wake-up call to NGOs, schools, media, and of course parents.

Update:

The video’s privacy was unfortunately set to “private” by the uploader and I’m trying to see if it’s available somewhere else on the web. For those who couldn’t watch it, it was about an experiment with Lebanese children where they were given some papers with illustrations of a kid in different skin tones. The children surprisingly kept on picking the kid with the white skin because they believed the ones with darker skin color are bad and look like Syrians!

In another experiment the paper contained a man of  white skin with a christian name, and they had to match him with one of three available girls, two girls having a white skin and muslim names, and one girl of a dark skin and christian name. The children in that case chose the girl of dark skin color because they believed the man should marry a christian girl like him or else would run into troubles!

Update 2:

Just found the video again.

Post by ‎علماني‎.

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Gibran Bassil’s new comic book – A nation’s dream

This is hilarious! I’ve been searching for some PDF version of this book ever since Bassam Abou Zaid tweeted about it a few days ago, and just last night, he made a news report about it. The Lebanese ministry of energy and water published a comic book called “A nation’s dream” starring minister Gibran Bassil and his son, telling a story that takes place in 2020 after we became an oil-producing country.

The story starts with Gibran Bassil and his son boarding a metro from Batroun towards Beirut passing by all the projects that Bassil has started, from dams to gas pipes and Beirut’s solar snake, then shows how Zouk became much less polluted and how the public dump in Dora turned into some touristic destination. The story then ends with Gibran Bassil telling how proud he feels to be among the few people who actually contributed into realizing the dreams of this country!

I’m not sure who advises minister Gibran Bassil on such things, but is he/she effing serious?! Morever, I wish the story has started by telling how exactly did Bassil accepted handing over the ministry of energy to someone else.

I totally loved the sarcastic comment by Bassam Abou Zaid at the end of the report by the way.

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Tamanna & Le Mall grant Charlie a trip to Barcelona

There was clapping and cheering, laughter and blushing faces. Moukarzel’s mother and father wiped away tears and smiles broke across their faces. Moukarzel is going on a free trip to Barcelona to watch his favorite team and favorite player Lionel Messi.

Moukarzel is a passionate Barcelona fan: He has memorized Barcelona’s games and Messi’s goals. Moukarzel is also afflicted with a chronic, degenerative disease that has him wheelchair bound and robbed of his normal speech. His prognosis is grim.

A group that helps children with critical illnesses, Tamanna, asked Moukarzel last month what he wanted to do above anything else. He said he wanted to see Messi play.

“Is there anything else?” they asked. “Messi,” he repeated. Just Messi. Source

Video shot by Pascale Ucef

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This is just sad

I just watched the most aweful thing about the clashes taking place in Tripoli right now, child fighters. The below video from LBC shows a 12 years old kid holding an AK-47 and admitting he’s participating in the fights to “protect” his neighborhood. Disguting!

One of the kids told LBCI that he is fighting to defend his region, adding that he knows how to use a weapon and shoot. The kid said that he will not go to school tomorrow unless things get back to normal in Tripoli.

 

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