Tool-Kit Committees

JEN established “Tool-Kit Committees” in villages in the Southern Lebanon. 

The Committees are in charge of managing a set of construction tools that JEN distributed beforehand to each community.  Each Committee uses its initiative to organize community-based tool lending.  Thanks to their original ideas, JEN’s assistance projects have been widely disseminated to local people in need.

Many Committees advertise tool lending over a loudspeaker of the minaret of the mosque in the centre of their village.  The minaret is a tall tower from which people are called to pray.  The call attracts people’s attention much more effectively than written notices JEN distributed around, as not all people are literate in villages in the South.

In one village, a municipal worker is involved in the Committee.  He is in charge of housing subsidies and informs those who frequently receive the allowance about tool lending.  In another village, the Committee cooperates with a local construction company.  The company promotes a discount campaign for reconstruction tied up with the Committee’s lending.