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- Country of residence: Palestine
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The idea of Palestinian Maryam Al-Shaar to use Palestinian cuisine to revive hope and provide job opportunities for Palestinian refugee women in Lebanon has achieved success far beyond what she dreamed of.
Maryam El Chaar's project (Sofra) attracted the attention of Hollywood actress and social activist Susan Sarandon, whose documentary film of the same name (Sofra) premiered in Beirut this week.
The film tells the story of Maryam Al-Shaar’s efforts to establish a mobile food truck project and exploit the culinary talents of the residents of the Burj Al-Barajneh Palestinian refugee camp, which was established in the southern suburb of Beirut in 1948 and is still home to thousands of Palestinians.
The documentary film was first shown at the El Gouna Festival in Egypt in 2017, and at that time it caused a stir. It helped the Women’s Programs Association, a non-governmental organization run by Maryam Al-Shaar, raise money to build a kindergarten to provide job opportunities and education for about 100 children.
During a visit to Nawras Kindergarten on Monday, Sarandon expressed her happiness at Maryam Al-Shaar's success.
While the American star was singing songs in kindergarten with the little ones, she said, “This shows that when people work together, things get bigger and bigger and bigger, especially school.” “How wonderful that this happened.”
She added that with the United States entering “a state of extreme fear” about the increase in the number of immigrants and asylum seekers, it has become necessary to “redefine the word ‘refugee’ to define the features of this story and clarify how important it is to support displaced people or those trying to survive on their own in very difficult circumstances.”
* "Safe place"
Maryam, who accompanied Sarandon during her visit to the camp, said she intends to set up a small restaurant that could be a “safe place” for women.
She added, “Usually it is a dream, something that comes from the people of the camp. We crystallize it, we dream about it, but the opportunity comes to realize it as a project and say, ‘This is it.’”
She continued, “We are thinking about creating a small restaurant for us, Sofra, that will be a safe place for women to come and relax psychologically and physically, sit, drink, eat, and express themselves more.”
Another non-governmental association, Al-Fanar Foundation, helped the Women's Programs Association establish the Sofra project by providing administrative support, financing, and training.
Executive Director of the Al-Fanar Foundation, Mirna Atallah, said that the (Sufra) project aims to give refugees the necessary tools to take responsibility for themselves.
She added, “Otherwise, we are throwing money at what is useless and not actually empowering people to determine their destinies.”
Thomas Morgan, director of the documentary film (Sufra), echoed the same opinion, saying that the project helped change the way Maryam Al-Shaar and the others viewed themselves, “like they became contributors for the first time, they became able to do something.”
Later, Maryam, Sarandon, Morgan, and other refugee women watched this documentary in a screening also attended by American actor Ben Stiller, local artists, and philanthropists.
Morgan presented the Sofra team with the awards that the film has won around the world over the past two years.
Nearly half a million Palestinian refugees live in crowded and poor conditions in 12 refugee camps in Lebanon. The refugees come from Palestinian families who fled or were forced to flee during the fighting that accompanied the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948.
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