As part of the United in Humanity project, and only thanks to your help, we were able to make a donation to reBuild reRow this week. With this we support the reconstruction of a rowing training center in Beirut, which was completely destroyed by the devastating explosion there last summer. Co-initiator of the project is Farah Jaroudi, a fellow student of our colleague Dominik. Together with other athletes and members of the local rowing clubs, she launched reBuild reRow to rebuild the training center as quickly as possible. 
The huge explosion in the port of the Lebanese capital Beirut last August completely destroyed the training center of the Lebanese Rowing Association along with many other buildings. This is only about 200 meters from the site of the explosion and was directly exposed to the force of the detonation. Fortunately, no one was on site at the time of the explosion.
It is the only active rowing training center in Lebanon and is therefore of great importance for Lebanese rowing. Before the explosion, 30 to 40 athletes aged 18 to 40 from eight different clubs were training there. Many of them also work voluntarily for the Lebanese Rowing Federation and before the detonation were well on the way to making rowing more popular in Lebanon and raising it to a new level of performance. In addition, the training center is of great importance for the mental health of the athletes and club members and is an important social meeting point.
"Just like most people, sports is what we do after a long hard day of work and stress and where we go to blow up some steam. And as Lebanon has been going through very difficult times, it was the place where people go, enjoy their time, meet with their teammates and disconnect for a couple of hours. Our motivation is our athletes, they are heartbroken, and the idea of not being able to row is frustrating."
- Farah Jaroudi
Step by step
For this reason, after the catastrophe and the great shock, the team of volunteers is now highly motivated to rebuild the training center and make it usable as quickly as possible. A three-step plan was developed for this purpose.
The first phase has just been completed and consisted of recovering materials and equipment that were still intact and then clearing the remaining debris. This was an extremely emotional affair for the helpers: “We all felt overwhelmed. It was not easy seeing the boats that we used to train with cut to pieces. But it was a motivation to keep moving forward, get back on our feet, and hopefully be able to go back on the water soon,” said Farah.
The next step (“ReBuild”) is the planning and construction of the new training center before training equipment and materials are purchased so that the athletes can finally get back on the water (“ReRow”). The total costs are estimated to be around 200,000 euros.
Farah hopes that she and the others will soon be able to pursue their great passion again. Because for her sport is much more than physical performance: “It creates a healthy lifestyle, it teaches us companionship, support, love, sportsmanship, peace, fair play, companionship, challenge embrace and accepting losing and winning, being happy for our colleague's achievements , helping each other, and growing together. For me, the sports world is the translation of the world peace that we all dream of. The love for this sport is a great motivation to keep going.” 
There is still a lot to do before that happens and it will be a long time before Beirut recovers from the great catastrophe. With our donation of 1,500 euros, we would like to contribute at least a small part to ensuring that the athletes get back a bit of normality as soon as possible through rowing.
Further information and donation options for the reBuild reRow project can be found here .
Images: Lebanese Rowing Federation
