Phil Hawkins

Meet Heleen, part of the leadership team at GROW Daycare in Bourj Hammoud, Beirut, Lebanon. Hellen is from the Netherlands and works as a speech therapist, training caregivers in how to support children in their language development. Day-to-day life in Bourj Hammoud, one of Beirut’s most distinctive and densely populated neighbourhoods, is vibrant, hectic, deeply communal, and shaped by decades of history—especially its strong Armenian heritage. Although the area has become more mixed in...

Meet Sahr, proprietor of Christ Our King School in Sierra Leone. He is also the pastor of a local church. Sierra Leone derives its name from the Lion Mountains near its capital, Freetown. In the late 18th century, some African Americans who had fought for the British Crown during the American Revolutionary War were resettled in Sierra Leone, forming a community named Black Loyalists . This resettlement scheme was partly motivated by social issues in London, with the Sierra Leone...

Meet Mireille, Site Manager at Grow Preschool in Bourj Hamoud, Beirut, Lebanon. Bourj Hammoud is located just off of the highway and surrounded by the communities of Dora , Karantina , Sin el Fil and Achrafieh . The founding father of Bourj Hammoud and its municipality was the Armenian Catholic Father Boghos Ariss who was instrumental in laying the foundations of a bustling city and center for the Lebanese Armenian community and served as its mayor for many years. Bourj Hammoud, located near...