Recording artist Dua Lipa visits Lebanon with UNICEF to meet refugee children and young people | WPN World People News

Grammy-winning recording artist and UNICEF supporter Dua Lipa travelled to Lebanon this week to meet children and young people supported by UNICEF, including many uprooted by the eight-year conflict in Syria.

UNICEF supporter and singer/songwriter Dua Lipa visits children at the Najedh Association, a local NGO, in the Bourj el Barajneh Palestinian camp in Beirut, Lebanon, April 14, 2019. UNICEF has been working with the Ministry of Education and Higher Education to improve access to formal education for both Lebanese and non-Lebanese children.

While in Lebanon, Lipa spoke to vulnerable children and young people about the obstacles they face in their daily lives, in obtaining an education, and in finding jobs and opportunities. As part of her visit, Lipa visited projects implemented in Terbol informal settlement in the Bekaa valley by Lebanese NGO LOST (Lebanese Organisation for Studies and Training), a UNICEF youth partner organization.

“You can read about the conditions or see the challenges on TV, but you don’t really feel the absolute dire circumstances for refugees from Syria until you see them for yourself,” said Lipa. “But the most powerful thing I saw was hope. In Terbol, I met a wonderful young girl called Yazee. She’s fifteen. She dreams of one day going back to Syria and starting a business applying makeup. And in spite of all of the excuses she could have to give up, she is every day studying and practicing and learning her craft so she can one day make her dream real.”

Lebanon is host to more than 1 million Syrian refugees, including around 500,000 children, many of whom have faced violence and exploitation, and continue to struggle to receive adequate health care or education.

She also visited Burj el Barajneh Palestinian camp, where she spent time with Palestinian and Syrian children receiving psychosocial support and taking early childhood development courses.

“We are happy to have the support of global champions like Dua Lipa advocating for vulnerable children,” said UNICEF's representative in Lebanon, Tanya Chapuisat. “She met and empowered young people who, like her, have ideas and energy to create a better world and therefore we thank her for amplifying the stories and dreams of the youth UNICEF is supporting across Lebanon.”

Source: UNICEF