Message from the Founders

Message from the Founders

SPOT began in 2020, in the middle of Lebanon's compounding crises. We started with a community shop in Zahle, buying from local farmers, employing women from the neighborhood, and delivering meals to elderly residents living alone. We learned by doing. Over five years, we reached more than 4,000 people and discovered what we believe to be true: communities facing crisis don't need rescuing. They need practical support, genuine partnership, and dignity in how help is offered.

That conviction drives everything we do now.

Lebanon's women and youth face intersecting barriers: economic exclusion, eroded mental health, weakened social fabric, and limited voice in decisions that shape their lives. These challenges don't exist in isolation, and neither should the responses. SPOT works across four interconnected areas: economic agency, psychosocial wellbeing, peacebuilding, and civic participation. Progress in one enables progress in the others. Economic stability creates space for wellbeing. Wellbeing enables participation. Participation builds safer communities. Safer communities sustain livelihoods.

We don't deliver programs to communities. We work alongside them, building the conditions for women and youth to shape solutions and lead the changes that matter in their own lives. This is what locally led development looks like in practice.

SPOT is growing. We are building the institutional systems to partner with donors, expand our reach, and sustain impact at scale, while staying accountable to the communities where we work. We also support other civil society organizations to strengthen their own capacity, because the change Lebanon needs will not come from any single organization.

If you believe in approaches that are locally rooted, evidence-informed, and centered on dignity, we invite you to partner with us.