Pros
You will meet some incredible, resilient, hard-working teachers, students and families.
Cons
Where to start? The managers and directors of this organisation have no idea what they're doing. They are unreceptive to ideas that will improve the work of the organisation and have a positive impact on the lives of refugees they are supposedly trying to help. There are serious issues with this organisation, I will list the main ones: 1. Local staff are exploited. The organisation prides itself on providing much-needed job opportunities to Syrian teachers in Lebanon. However, the way these staff members are treated is appalling. Salaries are cut for no reason and with no warning, teachers are extremely overworked with very few breaks and there is no transparency in terms of promotion or restructuring. 2. Lack of respect and dignity for beneficiaries. No health and safety, safeguarding or child protection policies are properly implemented. Derogatory comments from managers towards the families they work with. They just want to post pictures of their children on social media so they can get more 3. Unethical volunteering programme. Whilst you may enjoy your time as a volunteer, the programme is a money-making scheme which does not improve the lives of the refugee communities. Volunteers are overcharged for food and accommodation and are used for social media and fundraising purposes. Moreover, it is completely unethical to place inexperienced volunteers in this very tough environment and expect them to support vulnerable children and adults. This is unfair both to the volunteers and the refugees (and no, one day of training is not enough to prepare you!). 3. Complete lack of transparency in every area of work. Managers gaslight employees, pitting them against one another and encouraging them to report on colleagues and their work. You are expected to come up with meaningless reports on your work at short notice. No sense of teamwork whatsoever. No accountability for managers - they turn up when they like, give no information about their own work and have unrealistic expectations about what you can achieve. No transparency regarding where funds are going.