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    'Ramadan Kitchen' Gives Syrian Refugees A Taste Of Home

    The kitchen serves 5,000 iftar meals daily to displaced families living in camps in the Bekaa Valley of Lebanon during Ramadan. For many, it offers a sense of community, family and tradition.
    by Lama Al-Arian Jun 12, 2018 4 minutes
    Anas, left, and Bashar, 8, bond in the Ramadan Kitchen.

    Haider Hammoud often goes tent-to-tent at the refugee camps near the Syrian border asking families whether they've enjoyed their iftar meal. It's the Muslim holy month of Ramadan and the Syrian 32-year-old wants to ensure that when the sun goes down, displaced families break their fasts with a taste of home-cooked food.

    Thousands of families are living between the cornfields of Lebanon's Bekaa Valley and they've all escaped war-torn Syria in the last seven years. At the nearby Ramadan Kitchen, as it's referred to by the Syrian community, refugees work together to prepare 5,000 iftar meals daily.

    It's part of a month-long initiative run by a local Lebanese charity called . means "together" in Arabic. The kitchen has been open for the past five years and is funded by Sawa through donations. Most of the food is purchased at a local farmer's market near the camp.

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