The war in our region continues with no end in sight.

Here in Lebanon, Israeli aggression is escalating. Our South is increasingly threatened with occupation. Over a million people have been displaced. 60% of our community has been directly, materially affected.

At the beginning of March, we closed for two weeks following guidance from the Ministry of Education, staying in close contact with our students, staff, instructors, and alumni, monitoring their situations and state of mind. Soon after, the decision to reopen was left for each educational institution to make at its own discretion.

As a small institution, we were able to place this decision in the hands of our community - each person weighing their own reality: safety, capacity, movement, and the need, or not, to return.

We asked, and the answer didn’t take long to surface: the majority of our community was eager to return to the Space and to their work; to have somewhere to go, and something to do.

We don’t know what is coming, but, for now, we are open.

We are operating on limited hours, 9 to 4, to allow for safer movement. We’ve added Saturdays and Sundays, at the request of our students, to make up for lost time and to give them somewhere to be.

Classes have resumed. Some are joining online, unable to make it into the city. Our graduating students are continuing to work on their final collections.

Though our financial situation is precarious due to cuts in funding streams, we continue to provide our students with what we always have: access, materials, space, and support for transportation and housing.

We are taking this day by day. Continuous updates. Daily check-ins. Our Space is located in an area that has been repeatedly targeted. Our facade was damaged in a strike against a ten story residential building nearby. We’ve put emergency response plans in place. Emergency kits. Daily monitoring. Protocols. Controlling what we can, to hold what we can.

Opening is a risk. It is also necessary.

This is the context we’ve been working in for years now. Instability is not new, and it doesn’t get easier.

But what we see, again and again, is that when everything else falls away, our community turns to their hands, to their practice, to some semblance of routine, some movements towards imagining a future. Our community insisted on coming back. For their work, and for each other.

So we continue. We adjust. We work through the collapse. We focus on our mission and on what we can do to support each other, to give our community hands and legs.

At the same time, funding has nearly stopped. Costs have gone up. Damage repairs, safety measures, logistics, everything it takes to keep the Space open right now.

We are doing everything we can to keep going. But we can’t do it alone.

Creative Space Beirut is now fiscally sponsored in the United States through a partnership with Slow Factory. This makes it possible for supporters anywhere to contribute. For those based in the U.S., donations are fully tax-deductible.

We’ve also set up an option for automated monthly donations.

A recurring contribution gives us something steady to hold on to. It helps cover the moving parts that don’t stop - materials, transport, rent, keeping the Space open day after day. It allows us to keep showing up with some form of continuity, to maintain our commitment to our students and safeguard their physical and mental health.

What we’re trying to build is something shared. Less dependent on large donations that are at the whim of geopolitics, and more held up by many people, consistently.

If 5,000 people commit to $10 a month, we can secure our full annual budget - keeping the school running and ensuring that free education, supplies, and material support remain accessible to every student at Creative Space Beirut.

This is a clear, collective goal. And it’s within reach.

If you believe in our mission, this is the moment to step in. As little as $10 a month from you is the kind of sustained support that can secure Creative Space Beirut’s future.