Lamba Labs Makerspace, Beirut: helping to rebuild the community #Beirut @LambaLabs

Lamba Labs in Beirut, Lebanon is a makerspace with ties to Adafruit. They hosted the largest celebration of CircuitPython Day outside the US only a year ago.

It was with great sadness that the community saw the devastation of Beirut several days ago. So many residences were heavily damaged. It was a great relief to hear from Eng. Alaa Salam, Managing Member of Lamba Labs Beirut Hackerspace:

Things have been quite tough these days, but so far all manageable. We did a roll call yesterday on all our maker communities. Aside from minor injuries and stitches, broken glass, broken window frames (aluminium and wood), and some broken cars, no real harm done.

All the love from here in Beirut ❤

Adafruit asked about approved fundraisers to assist in the restoration efforts and Lamba states they are collaborating with 2 entities to raise funds in supporting the city’s residents:

– Impact Lebanon fundraiser: their focus is rebuilding lost homes, houses, historic landmarks, and affected hospitals.

– Anera and Global Shapers fundraiser: an NGO which is coordinating with 12 NGOs including Red Cross Lebanon division and Caritas. Their main goal is collecting funds to sustain the affected families until they can financially recover from the explosion.

If you wish to help, please consider donating to the groups mentioned.

As a start, Adafruit is dedicating CircuitPython Day 2020 to the Lamba Labs Makerspace.

More to come.

Here are some pictures they sent along with Makerspace members and others working to help.

For now, most spaces are down to manage cleanups, but we’ve restored 2 spaces Tuesday night so we don’t experience any shortage of PPE production for our local hospitals and communities. We’re also setting up volunteering hours, especially with our construction engineers, to help out with the rebuilding process. Other volunteers in our communities have set up aid tents in key areas of the cities to help the public in need find food and shelter. They are also helping out with finding missing persons.

Hoping that our down time doesn’t extend more than it needs to be, we hope to get back to our usual schedule of online activities soon (one of which is celebrating CircuitPython Day!)