Civil War in Tripoli

Imagine you are a young Rotarian in Tripoli, Libya, in 2012 when the Syrian civil war breaks out.

Your country is becoming flooded with Syrian refugees to the point that there are food and water shortages and waste management issues.

Your community of 2,000 now has more than 2,000 additional refugees. What would you do?

Young Bilal used his Rotary connection and called ShelterBox, a Rotary partner, and arranged for the shipment of 1,500 ShelterBoxes. A ShelterBox includes everything a family of five needs to survive from a tent, to a stove, sleeping bags, water purification system to utensils.

It is not a perfect solution but the community is surviving and further conflict has been avoided.

Frank Belote is a member of Washington Noon Rotary. The club meets Mondays at noon at King Chicken. For more information, visit washingtonnoonrotary.org.