Since 2005, Biladi has taken children, refugees, and vulnerable young adults onto the sites, into the museums, and through the crafts that make up Lebanon's living heritage, turning distant history into something they can touch, taste, and carry forward.
Today's youth often find themselves disoriented and disconnected from their roots, even as they carry within them a vital need to reconnect with that heritage. Biladi's education work exists to close that gap; not through lectures, but through outings, workshops, and experiences that engage all five senses.
A rural Lebanese house on wheels
A traveling exhibition exploring two themes: the rural home and traditional crafts. A bus is transformed into a typical rural house interior, giving students an immersive way to discover Lebanon's tangible heritage wherever they are, and converts into a rapid-response unit during emergencies.
Beiti Bl Dayaa — "My Rural Home": students explore household objects, farming tools, and ancestral practices through interactive activities, learn heritage protection basics, and end with a traditional Lebanese breakfast.
Darbit Maalim — "Traditional Crafts": a sensory, hands-on look at artisanal heritage, with copper and pottery workshops and a tasting of traditional katayef.
Building belonging through carefully designed site visits
Biladi's ambition is to forge a deep, lasting connection between children and the two forms of heritage that shape their identity. Carefully designed outings, passionate guides, and engaging workshops bring new life to what often feels distant or forgotten to young people.
Memory is built through experiences that engage all five senses, so Biladi creates concrete, immersive moments rather than lectures. Each outing pursues three goals:
Agricultural Vocational Education and Training for Vulnerable Adolescents in Lebanon
Funded by UNICEF with the Ministry of Agriculture and the Italian NGO AVSI, AVOCADO is a non-formal alternative education system delivered in seven agricultural vocational schools across Lebanon: Nabatiyeh, Khiam, Fanar, Batroun, Nasriyet Rizk, Abdeh, and Baakline.
Its two parts, "Modern Mouneh for Resilience" and "Koudourat/Heritage for Resilience," modernize traditional food production and pass it to the next generation. More than 2,500 underprivileged young people aged 15–25 have learned to produce quality traditional products at low cost, restoring a transgenerational link to their ancestors and opening a path to income generation.
Press on the title above to watch the UNESCO documentary.
Teaching students to fight the antiquities trade
Funded by the UNESCO Office in Beirut, six workshops were held in Anjar, Tyre, Baalbek, Jbeil, and the National Museum to raise students' awareness of illicit trafficking in cultural property, and to train teachers on educational material to carry the project into their own schools.
Press on the title above to watch the UNESCO documentary.
Workshops and a social media campaign for wartime heritage protection
Funded by the UNESCO office in Beirut, Biladi organized eight workshops for students in Tyre, Baalbek, Jbeil, and the National Museum, teaching them about UNESCO conventions and heritage protection during conflict. Social media was used to spread messages of unity and solidarity, joining a global movement to protect heritage under threat across the Middle East.
[Lebanese, Syrian and Iraqi children are rekindling a relationship with their heritage thanks to the work of Biladi]
Helping refugee children build a positive image of home
In response to Lebanon's refugee crisis, this project helps Syrian refugee children discover the wealth of their heritage and build a positive image of their war-torn country. Funded by UNICEF (2014–2015) and the EU–MADAD Trust Fund (2019), and managed by the Italian NGO AVSI with the "Syrian Eyes" program, it ran in Jounieh, Saïda, Nabatiyeh, Khiam, and Marjeyoun.
Facilitators were Syrian refugees themselves, trained to work through their own trauma in order to apply non-conventional learning methods through non-formal materials and song, rekindling the youngest refugees' sense of belonging to Syria.
An educational and fun day showing learning can be playful
Coordinated with the Directorate General of Antiquities, the National Heritage Foundation's Museum Committee, and UNESCO Beirut, this pioneering day introduced children to Lebanon's archaeological heritage through thematic tours on sculpture, mosaics, and pottery, followed by creative workshops, book signings, and a screening of the documentary Baalito.
The Museum Committee selected the twenty best resulting artworks and displayed them at the museum entrance, celebrating the creativity of the young participants.
Education builds the generation that will carry Lebanon's heritage forward. Heritage protection is what makes sure there's still something for them to inherit.
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