Over 1 million Syrian refugees currently call Lebanon home. Approximately half of these are of school age, however access for them to the public schooling system in Lebanon is extremely limited due to financial constraints, limited mobility, discrimination, institutional reasons etc. In 2017 there were already 8 schools for a total of 4,000 Syrian children in Beeka Valley.
Together with the American University in Beirut, Government authorities and local NGOs, the goal for this new project is to construct alternative schools for the refugee children. Within this task, heating of the school buildings in winter would remain a significant problem. Development of a simple and cost effective heating and hot water system for the school buildings will offer a better environment for the attending children.
Sustainability is naturally a critical consideration due to the changeable nature of the Refugee Camp. The system will ideally need to be as widely implementable as possible, in order to allow a multiplication of the solution in the future if the same design can be made use of in several other projects.