In South Lebanon, where the sounds of airstrikes have become part of daily life, safety is no longer a given, especially for girls and women. Amid this reality, FEMALE’s community center in the South stood as one of the few places where girls and women could still move freely, laugh loudly, seek protection from different forms of violence and abuse, and learn.
Since 2017, FEMALE’s community centre in the South has served as a feminist hub for organizing, learning, healing, and collective care. For many girls, it was not simply a building, but one of the only places where they could meet, read at the feminist library, work, study, attend sessions where different taboo and rights-based topics were discussed and claim space in a context where public life is often dominated by men and increasingly constrained by fear and violence.
With TDH Germany’s support, FEMALE sustained the center’s operational capacity and humanitarian interventions, which then expanded to different regions including Bekaa, North Lebanon, Beirut and Mount Lebanon, during one of the most volatile periods Lebanon has witnessed in recent years, even as violence intensified, TDH Germany’s support helped us respond to the most marginalized emergency needs, and prioritize girls’ wellbeing, safety, and joy.
At a time when funding was uncertain and the future of the South center hung in the balance, TDH Germany support allowed FEMALE to hold the line. It enabled FEMALE to keep the space open, safe, and efficient for as long as it was physically possible. This support sustained the everyday, often invisible work that makes protection real: paying rent, repairing damage caused by nearby airstrikes, ensuring access to water and hygiene, installing first aid equipment, and maintaining a space where girls and women could still walk in and feel cared for.
More than sustaining a space, TDH Germany helped us sustain continuity, the ability to show up consistently for girls and women amid chaos, to offer routine where everything else was unpredictable, and to affirm that feminist spaces deserve protection even in times of war.
Throughout this partnership launched in late 2024, the onset of the Israeli war on Lebanon, FEMALE implemented a nationwide PSS and well-being project responding to the urgent needs of women and adolescent girls in South Lebanon.
FEMALE with this support ran a holistic program including art, self-defense, football, and basketball sessions for adolescent girls aged 13 to 17 targeting more than 1,000 women and girls. Led by professional, gender-sensitive trainers, these sessions created moments where fear loosened its grip.
For many girls, these hours became the only time they felt safe, present, and free in their bodies. Participation in sports increased, and girls reported feeling stronger, more confident, and more connected to one another. While the long-term impact of these activities was inevitably disrupted by displacement and trauma, the significance of these moments reminded the girls that their bodies are powerful, deserving of care, and worthy of acknowledgement.
As the war escalated into a full-scale assault on Lebanon, over two million people were displaced, many of them from the South and Bekaa, including FEMALE members, volunteers, and program participants. Planned group wellbeing activities could no longer be implemented. Shortly after, FEMALE’s community centre in the South was completely destroyed. Rather than retreating, FEMALE adapted. Guided by feminist principles of care, agency, and community leadership, the organization shifted toward emergency response. Members and volunteers, many of whom were themselves displaced, supported women and girls in shelters and host communities through continuous needs assessments, the distribution of feminine hygiene and emergency kits, PSS, GBV awareness raising sessions, and case management services.
This moment reaffirmed a core belief at FEMALE: communities are not passive recipients of aid. They are leaders, responders, and knowledge-holders, even in the most devastating circumstances.
Building on this fruitful partnership with TDH Germany, FEMALE was able to prepare a post-war response that addresses the long-term needs of women, girls, and youth across Lebanon, including the South, Bekaa, Beirut, Tripoli, and Mount Lebanon, which centers PSS, GBV case management and legal assistance, awareness-raising on physical and online violence, and the rebuilding of feminist networks through collective reflection and organizing.
This project stands as a testament to what feminist, survivor-centered collaboration can achieve even when outcomes are disrupted by forces beyond control.
A building was lost, but a movement was not.
