I am because we are, An anthropologist asked a group of South African children to play a game. Whoever touches the tree first, takes all the sweets. However, the children had another idea. They held hands and together they all touched the tree together saying “how can we be happy when one of us is sad”. Because of that, the man was forced to give sweets to all the kids! The concept of One Small Town is based on the South African Ubuntu philosophy. The main idea is that the people of a small town can only build massive change when they unite with love and prosperity. Director Michael Tellinger founded and pioneered this project until it became an international movement.
One Small Town Lebanon was launched in 2021, to promote co-ownership and social abundance in hopes of improving the socio-economic system. Since then, Fayez Moukarim, the assigned Lebanese ambassador, had worked extensively on applying this new system in Lebanon. The first town to embrace the One Small Town philosophy was the humble town of Ras el Matn.
Members of the town rushed to sign up and become part of OST Ras el Matn. Today we have 250 active co-op members, 33 members in the task team, and 3 council groups. All of these are working towards solving the issues of an energy shortage, financial insecurities, agricultural dependency, absence of reliable medical health insurance, and lack of support for innovation initiatives.
Although this concept is new to Lebanese citizens, the security and abundance it promises definitely grabs the attention of every suffering individual in Lebanon. The One Small Town philosophy is seeking to create the much-needed enhancement in this broken system we currently reside in. through our members and our team effort one small town will definitely change the world!
