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T
he computer – packed tightly in three boxes – was on
the shelf of the Alumni office. The IC lottery was drawn
and the winner was Lynn Abdouni.
She and her parents were strolling through the AUB campus
a month earlier when an IC student approached them.
“Would you like to buy a ticket from me?” she asked. “It’s for
a good cause. It’s for the IC scholarship fund.”
Lynn agreed and tucked away the ticket – soon to be forgotten.
A few weeks later, Lynn received a call from the IC alumni
office. She had won a computer.
“I am going to convince her to donate it to charity,” said
Mohammed Abdouni, Lynn’s father, when he showed up to the
Alumni office to pick up the prize.
The chosen recipient was a housewife in the picturesque
Bekaa village of Sultan Yacoub.
Samia Jaroush, a mother of four, was getting weary of seeing
the village children gathering in the square during the summer
“doing absolutely nothing,” she said.
Moreover, she found herself shocked at the offending words
the children were using to speak to one another.
Perched on a hilltop overlooking the fertile Bekaa Valley, Sul-
tan Yacoub is more or less isolated and can only be reached by a
winding uphill road.
And then it came to her: why not turn an old ruin in the vil-
lage into a center for the children? It would do perfectly for a
summer school which teaches children religious ethics.
“We would teach them how to treat each other with kindness
and how to behave,” she thought to herself.
The ruin, built in the late 1800’s, used to be the village’s one
room school house. But it has been abandoned for more than
30 years.
Jaroush turned to her women’s group and displayed her idea.
The five women agreed to help out.
Over the next few days, the women called relatives abroad
asking for donations. Much of Sultan Yacoub villagers emi-
grated to Brazil – some to the US – years ago. The construction
began.
Two months later, Jaroush stood at the window in the center
looking at the long line of children walking to the center.
As the summer progressed, handwritten exams and notes
were proving tiring. The center needed a computer. But the
budget didn’t allow one.
And then the IC had a lottery.
Jaroush tapped the computer on her desk proudly. “We use
it a lot,” she explained. She, herself, isn’t particularly computer
literate. But some of her students are.
“We have a database of all our children now,” she said.
But the proudest moment of all came at the end of the sum-
mer session. A donor wanted the students who ranked highest
in his or her exam to receive a laptop. Two girls were leading in
the class – one from a wealthy family and one from a poor one.
With only half a mark difference, the rich child won the prize.
When handed the laptop, the girl hesitated. She then looked
at her classmate.
“You take it,” she said.
As the other girl reached for it, Jaroush struggled to hold her
tears back.
She knew, then, that it was all worth it.
The story of the IC computer
IC Reaches Out
The center children
performing