Beit el-Hanane, Home of Tenderness, is a non-profit, non-denominational (non-sectarian), non-discriminatory, charitable organization that deals with the problems of abused women in Lebanon.
It promotes community awareness and education to break a cycle of violence and abuse; and it provides an environment of encouragement, compassion, and support for all who come in contact with it through a network of professionals and volunteers.
The idea started in 1994 at the home of co-founder, Jacqueline Hajjar, when a young woman, being terribly abused sexually and mentally by both her father and her brother, ran away from home and asked for shelter. Throughout her career as a University Professor, Jacqueline Hajjar has been aware of young women (and a few men) who were abused by their families and communities, and her concern motivated her to find solutions using out-of-pocket resources. She soon came to the realization that social systems do not adequately protect women within society, and that even young men are sexually abused. Many years of working with young people provided her with insights on the magnitude of the problems and the lack of sufficient homes that would alleviate the problem in Lebanon. She spent her teaching years taking care of the needs prevalent around her, opening her own home and her heart to them, spending most of her salary on providing help, shelter, protection and education to these young women.
Last academic year, she retired from teaching and would now like to devote herself full-time to this cause. To do this successfully, she realized that she needed a more structured organization since it will be ineffective for her to continue to use her private family home or her former office for meetings and counselling sessions.
Her sister, Evelyne Accad, who has devoted her whole career to research and writing on women’s issues in the Arab world, joined her in this project as she felt how important it was to combine activism with scholar research. She had noticed how a lacking of combination of the two made activism less efficient. This project allowed her to finally put into practice what she had been denouncing in her writings with the goal to find practical solutions!
The Founding Members of Beit el-Hanane
Jacqueline Hajjar, Evelyne Accad, Michelle Sfeir and Sophia Nehme