About the Lazarus Home for Girls

The history of the Lazarus Home for Girls begins with two remarkable people, Alice and Basil Sahhar. Both were born and raised as Christians in what was then Palestine. As a teenager, Alice experienced homelessness, when she and her family were evicted after the creation of the State of Israel and became refugees in Jordan. She eventually was able to return to the land of her birth, trained as a teacher, and accepted a teaching post in an orphanage for boys. It was here that she realised that God had given her a gift: a life-path of service to those who were orphaned and destitute.

Basil Sahhar was from a well-to-do Orthodox Christian family in Palestine. He was a trustee of the orphanage at which Alice worked. They met, fell in love, and were married. Both were dedicated to their faith and to peace. In 1972, having begun a family, they decided to devote their lives to orphans. They moved from Jersualem to Bethany, a mostly Muslim town, and began their work. Their neighbours distrusted their motives, but nothing deterred them. They refurbished an abandoned building, took in the maximum number of boys they felt they could care for, and began their lives of service.

Education was always paramount to them: they knew that an education would allow 'their' boys to escape poverty. They had to find funds and help. Basil's appeals brought in money, but the success of the small orphanage brought in even more boys, all desperately needing care. Alice and Basil knew that they had to have a purpose-built orphanage to take many more boys. Despite the dangers, they launched their ambitious plan, and in 1984 the orphanage opened its doors. It was called 'Jeel Al Amal': 'Generation of Hope.'

By now, Alice and Basil's eldest daughter Samar was working full-time at the orphanage, accepting God's plan for her life. After Basil died in 1987, mother and daughter continued the work that husband and wife had begun.

Alice saw that, among the children coming to them, were sisters and brothers. Because local customs forbade girls to be housed in the same building as boys, she could not accept them into Jeel Al Amal, yet she felt that she could not let the girls live in the streets while the boys were sheltered and educated. The answer was to house the girls nearby; brothers and sisters would be together in the school. A flat was found not far away and the girls were housed there in crowded, but clean and well-run, conditions.

Now that they had a place for girls, Alice and Samar found all too many candidates: homeless girls, young victims of rape who were abused by their families for this 'shame', mothers with infant daughters turned out into the streets, abandoned girls, neglected girls. Is was soon apparent that a purpose-built orphanage for girls would also be required.

It is here that the story becomes wider, and the Friends of the Lazarus Home for Girls step onto the stage, to take the good work of the Lazarus Home for Girls and their supporters a further step.