Archbishop Issam Darwish

I had the honour to meet yesterday one of the greatest cleric social workers in Lebanon, currently the Archibishop of Zahle for the Christian Catholic family, his Excellence Issam Darwish.

I heard so many stories about him before the actual meeting. His reputation is as white as it could be. He created Dar El Sadaqa technical school and orphanage, in his own words: "to answer the needs of the communities". After he initiated the orphanage (Al Dar) in Ksara area, he fought to change the support system within the Ministry of Social Affairs, which they were surprisingly positive to his proposition, terminating the work of orphanages and support families to keep their offsprings at home (of course the positivity died with time passing, for it, was a successful initiative, like every success in this miserable country that was put to sleep). This initiative could have affected negatively Al Dar. Yet, in his excellency's mind, the prosperity of the association that he created was not the purpose, serving the underprivileged was!

What we label now social entrepreneurship, which something I feel proud to be knowledgable about, was just simple ideas he initiated in the seventies. I was discussing lately with the director of Dar El Sadaqa, Mr Fady Francis the possibility to invest in the assets of the technical school. Their facility contains a carpentry workshop and restaurant in large proportion. My idea was to invest in business models that can serve the internship of students at Dar El Sadaqa, and later, incubating their small businesses or self-employment. Discovered later on that the Archbishop was planning the project in 1978 when we were still a young priest. He was promoted to his current position and was unable to proceed. 

In his words: "I missed the good old days working with people. now I'm an Archbishop, but what does that mean!"

People like him restore my faith in humanity and give me the inspiration to keep doing what I do, putting more heart than the mind in the service of others.