Commissioned by: JRS Lebanon and the Arrupe Migrant Center
Introduction and Purpose of the Assessment
The Arrupe Migrant Center (formerly the African-Asian Migrant Center) has been a work of the Jesuits at St. Joseph Tabaris in Achrafieh, Beirut for over 30 years. Initially founded as a project of the Lebanese Catholic bishops to care for the pastoral needs of Catholic migrants, the organization has expanded its scope in recent years. Currently, the AMC serves predominantly migrant workers from the Philippines and Sri Lanka, refugees from Sudan and South Sudan, and migrants from a wide range of African countries. Many are domestic workers, both live-in and live-out. Primarily, the AMC offers space and support to migrant-led organizations. Several such organizations are housed in the AMC, including two predominantly Filipino religious groups, a Sri Lankan Buddhist community, a large cricket league made up of Sri Lankan, Indian, Pakistani, and Filipino men and women, a Sudanese women’s association, and the African United Communities of Lebanon, a coordinating group for African national communities.
Other migrant and refugee organizations often collaborate with the AMC to host events, meetings, and workshops. Most activities occur on Sundays, centered around a weekly English-language Mass at St. Joseph Church that is offered for and by migrant communities. The Catholic community also offers frequent and consistent programming. Over the years, the AMC and church have provided basic assistance and referrals to migrants in need, focusing on medical and educational funding. The church provides pastoral support to migrants, including visits to those in detention, home visits, funerals, and related assistance. Additionally, the AMC itself serves as a point of access to services for migrants. collaborating with organizations including the IOM, the Université de Saint Joseph in Lebanon, and migrants’ embassies to host legal clinics, health care days, and other services in the places where migrants choose to spend their day off. Overall, the communities connected to the AMC include hundreds of men, women, and children from over a dozen different nationalities. Notably, the AMC works with populations that are comparatively under-researched and under-served, including migrant men and children in Lebanon and African refugees.
The Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS) is a Jesuit NGO with the mission to accompany, serve, and advocate for refugees and forcibly displaced migrants around the world. JRS operates in over 50 countries globally and focuses on programming in reconciliation, mental health and psychosocial support (MHPSS), education, and livelihoods. JRS has been operating in Lebanon since 2013, serving Syrian refugees and other displaced people in Bourj Hammoud, Baalbek, Bar Elias, and Jbeil. JRS Lebanon’s programs focus on MHPSS, education, including formal education programming, and livelihoods. In collaboration with the AMC, JRS is beginning a new project focused on migrants and non-Syrian, non-Palestinian refugees in the Beirut and Bourj Hammoud areas. While the AMC will remain a separate organization, JRS intends to provide professionalized MHPSS, protection, and community support programs to migrants by collaborating with the AMC. JRS plans to leverage AMC’s privileged access to underserved migrant and refugee groups to extend programming and resources to these communities, increase knowledge and awareness of the issues they face, and guide effective advocacy for migrants and refugees in Lebanon.
As such, the JRS, in collaboration with the Institute for Migration Studies at the School of Arts and Sciences at the Lebanese American University, conducted a needs assessment to better understand the scope, needs, and capacities of migrant communities connected to Jesuit networks in and around Beirut and Bourj Hammoud. This comprehensive analysis aimed to inform the design of JRS’s new community-based migrant project, lay the foundation for ongoing research on community issues, and establish basic directions for JRS advocacy on relevant topics. The specific objectives included increasing understanding of communities linked to the AMC (in Achrafieh) and the proposed JRS project. This covered demographic information, residential and employment status, legal status, freedom of movement, and community connections. The assessment also involved studying live-in migrant domestic workers with restricted mobility who connected digitally through WhatsApp groups and online resources like Filipino religious streaming communities.
Furthermore, the assessment focused on the migrant communities in the Bourj Hammoud/Nabaa areas near the proposed project site. It sought to identify specific risks, vulnerabilities, and struggles faced by migrants and refugees, including men and children from Sudanese and Sri Lankan/South Asian communities. Additionally, the assessment aimed to increase awareness of existing organizations, community groups, and forms of mutual aid among migrants and refugees, highlighting areas of action, targeted populations, and possibilities for collaboration. Operational awareness of government, NGO, and embassy services provided to the target populations was also a key objective, particularly regarding the availability of case management, wraparound services, and effective referral structures. The findings were intended to develop evidence-based management steps to inform the new JRS community-led program, ensuring the involvement of the migrant community in all project cycle management steps. All objectives included relevant gender analyses, focusing on service availability and access, risks, and vulnerabilities.