São Paulo – Actions of Lebanese immigrants and descendants in Brazil will be among the topics of the international conference “The Lebanese presence around the world,” due on the 9th and 10th this month in the city of Jounieh, in Lebanon. A Brazilian, the economist Luiz Carlos Merege, will give one of the lectures at the meeting, showing how in Brazil, Lebanese entrepreneurship converted itself into social actions for the benefit of the local population.
Merege will discuss two cases which he researched, namely those of the Women’s Beneficent Society, an organization formed by women from the Arab colony which established the Syrian-Lebanese Hospital, a landmark in its field in Brazil, andCedro do Líbano Associação de Proteção à Infância (Cedar of Lebanon Association for Childhood Protection), which welcomes children and adolescents in need of social assistance, education and food, and was also founded by Lebanese.
The lecture title is “Lebanese social entrepreneurship: its contribution to the development of Brazil.” Merege will explain how the organizations were established by Lebanese women, how they united the immigrant community toward a social mission, are role models in their fields of action, landmarks in service provision, and have positioned themselves in strategic areas for the development of Brazil.
Merege is the grandson of a Lebanese man from the city of Dhour Choueir, and a researcher of Brazil-Lebanon relations. “I have only recently become closer with Lebanon. My paternal grandfather was from Dhour Choueir, and me and my wife, Marcia Moussallem, decided to seek our relatives two years ago. I met mine in Dhour Choueir and she met hers in Zahle. We have since developed deep emotional ties to Lebanon and its people,” says Merege in an email interview to ANBA.
Merege was invited to give a lecture by the Université Saint-Esprit de Kaslik (Usek), which organizes the conference through its History Institute. Merege’s name was referred by the director of the Usek’s Latin American Studies and Cultures Center (Lascc), Roberto Khatlab. The lecturer is the president of the Luiz Carlos Merege Institute for Third Sector Management, which provides teaching, research, training and advisory to the third sector.
Aside from Merege, the Lascc also referred a Mexican lecturer, Carlos Martinez Assad, of the National Autonomous University of Mexico, who will discuss the adaptation of Lebanese immigrants to Mexico, and John Karam, of the University of Chicago, in the United States, who will tackle Lebanese immigration in South America. Lecturers from other parts of the world will be featured as well, including Lebanon, Costa Rica, Germany and France.
The meeting is sponsored by the Lebanese president, Michel Sleiman, and will take place at the Jean El Hawa Auditorium, on the Usek’s main campus. The official opening of the meeting will take place at 10:00 am next Friday at the John Paul II Amphitheatre, also in the main campus, and Merege’s talk is scheduled for Saturday, 10th at 11:45 am.
*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum
