The AGBU threw itself into this task with determination. The fact that Syria and Lebanon had well organized local chapters meant that it could get down to work without delay. Thus it took up its original vocation again: opening new schools or subsidizing the ones already in existence. Since the World War, the Union had shunted this task aside under the pressure of events, making orphans its first priority; its involvement in the field of education had been limited to its orphanages. The new circumstances required, however, that it alter its policies and begin making generous subsidies to the schools that had been opened in the refugee camps of both Syria and Lebanon. The situation was very different from the one that had obtained in Cilicia: the foundations of an Armenian school system were almost totally lacking in the Levant and matters were even worse in the hastily erected refugee camps. Support for education therefore once again moved to the top of the AGBU agenda in the 1920s; the Union no longer confined itself to subsidizing schools administered by other organizations, but was itself soon involved in establishing and running Armenian schools.
The Cilician exodus and the changes that had come about in the Near East turned Armenian political life upside down. Newly created political forces such as the Armenian National Delegation or the Armenian National Union, which had played an important role in Armenian life in ... Read all
New Challenges in Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, and Cyprus
Children living in caves near Beirut (Coll. Bibl. Nubar/Paris).
Armenian refugees living in cellars near the “Quarantine” camp in Beirut (Coll. Bibl. Nubar/Paris).
Aerial view of Beirut, probably photographed by Father Poidebard (Coll. Bibl. Nubar/Paris).