A news update from the chairman
of The McCabe Educational Trust

Eight months have passed since my last report on the Lazarus girls and sadly I have very little news to relate.

At present the Lazarus Home for Girls is still closed. Rumours abound with few concrete facts. We are in regular contact with Samar who is now spending much of her time with supporters in Italy. She does not now expect to return to her former position and is actively pursuing alternative possibilities.

Key members of the Lazarus Home committee have resigned and we are not sure that any effective board of management now exists.

Some of the girls are being cared for, we think in a satisfactory manner, in a local home run by the Palestinian Authority. Others have drifted back to their local communities. We would rather they were back in the homely atmosphere that Samar created but we now think that this possibility is becoming more remote as the months go by.

At our meeting of 18 November last year, we re-affirmed that care of the girls would always be our first priority in any continuing involvement with Lazarus and we decided to set aside £200,000 specifically to help the girls if a solution to the current crisis could be found.

Our current view is that a solution is unlikely to be forthcoming and that we should start thinking of an alternative use for these funds. Our trustees are now researching possibilities.

We are not going to act hastily. We still hope that a way forward for the girls will emerge. Our Trustees plan to meet again in October with the intention to review the situation and bring any new ideas to the table.

The Sahhar family have done tremendous work in Bethany over a long period of time and we continue to support Alice’s other daughter, Najwa, who has positively transformed the Jeel al Amal Boys Home.

McCabe parties visit the home regularly and as I write, volunteers from Britain are running the annual summer school funded by MET. We have explored the possibility of the Jeel al Amal board taking responsibility for the Lazarus situation, but this has not been met with any enthusiasm.

Over the summer our Trustees will be actively searching for a solution. We are required to keep the charity commissioners informed and are about to review the whole situation with them. Your ideas and your prayers will be very welcome.

Thank-you for your
continuing support.

Bob Jackson
Revd Robert Jackson
11 July 2011