Implementing Partner: Catholic Relief Services (CRS)

Funding Period: October 2009 - September 2012

Amount: $992,770

Purpose: People with disabilities have full, equal participation in Lebanon’s economic life.

Objectives

• People with disabilities have the capacity to hold jobs in the private sector.
• Increased employment opportunities exist for workers with disabilities.
• Companies are able to accommodate people with disabilities in work environments.
• Arc en Ciel's overall managerial and financial capacities are enhanced to sustain activities in the future.

For the Employment Assistance to People with Disabilities project, Catholic Relief Services is partnering with Arc en Ciel, the leading Lebanese NGO assisting people with disabilities. The project is working to bolser the ability of Arc en Ciel to assist people with disabilities in finding employment. The project works through two units within Arc en Ciel —A Job Placement Unit and an Adaption Unit—to identify people with disabilities in need of employment, link them with potential employers, and facilitate their entrée into the work environment.

Through the Job Placement Unit, the project developed and linked three databases: one listing people with disabilities, one of businesses, and one of available jobs. To increase its roster of participating businesses, the project developed a set of brochures for people with disabilities, businesses, and the public describing its activities. The project distributed these brochures at a Beirut job fair where thousands of jobs were offered by 150 businesses. The project is further assisted in its efforts to liaise with the business community by a Private Sector Steering Committee of representatives from Lebanese businesses.

The second key project activity centers around the Adaptation Center. The center is staffed, in part, by people with disabiltiies, and is equipt with drafting and construction equipment. The staff work to ensure that companies are physically accessible to people with . They assess work spaces to see if they are accessible to people with disabilties; propose adaptions that can be made; and either supervisor or actually implement adaptions such as installing ramps or elevators and adjusting bathrooms.

Preventing Injuries and Expanding Economic Opportunities for Landmine Survivors

Implementing Partner: World Rehabilitation Fund, Inc. (WRF)

Funding Period: October 2006 - September 2012

Amount: $5,747,900

Purpose: Develop practices, policies, attitudes, and capacity to address the socioeconomic problems and social burden resulting from landmines and acts of war. This includes the development and implementation of programs to decrease landmine injuries, assist victims of landmines and war, alleviate social burden, and expand economic opportunities within and around targeted communities.

Objectives

• Expand the viability of the Resource Cooperative (COOP) as a sound business entity in accordance with transparent cooperative and business principles
• Strengthen and expand successful income-generating programs and initiate new ones that will 1) increase membership in the COOP; 2) upgrade the business viability, sustainability, and income-generating capabilities of the COOP; and 3) decrease the vulnerability of the COOP to unforeseen developments, such as Avian influenza.
• Enable COOP governing bodies to assume full control of its business operations
• Assist the COOP, its current members, and others in the community in obtaining business loans so they can expand their income-generating activities
• Build and commission a "Cooperative Center" to house the COOP, as well as project operations