The Lebanese dynamic duo helping frontline workers this Ramadan

SCENES shines a spotlight on youth around the world that are breaking down barriers and creating change. The character-driven short films will inspire and amaze as these young change-makers tell their remarkable stories.

Ziad Daouk and Leonardo Moqdad met through the NGO Ahla Fawda in Beirut. The duo share a passion for giving back to their home country of Lebanon. Ziad joined the team in 2014. "I was a student, I wanted to volunteer and have some fun," he explains.

Lebanon's humanitarian needs grew tenfold as the country fell into a severe economic crisis. The original concept of Ahla Fawda was to beautify local spaces, create street festivals and host events in the community. The NGO had no choice but to provide broader services immediately after the Beirut Port explosion. Their new mission was fixing homes, feeding and providing necessities to those in need.

"The Lebanese people face a lot, other than food and the electricity and the water and it's medication and education (they need). It's a big cluster of depression and anxiety and wanting to do something but not being able to," Leonardo tells Scenes. "So everybody's in survival mode at the moment, including me. My survival medicine could be doing humanitarian work," he adds.

Lebanon's economic meltdown began in late 2019 and has left more than three-quarters of the country's six million people, including a million Syrian refugees, in poverty. In January 2022, the Lebanese pound hit a new low of 25,800 to the U.S. dollar, eradicating the purchasing power of most of its residents who are paid in Lebanese pounds. The recent financial crisis has been described as one of the worst since the 1850s. Government debt was estimated at 495 per cent of GDP in 2021, following a