Today is World Friendship Day

Today is World Friendship Day, a celebration set up by the United Nations in 2011. The idea is that friendship between people, countries and cultures can help build bridges and promote peace.

In a world of many dangers that threaten social harmony and development on a daily basis, it is important to do all we can to encourage friendship.

Thousands of friendships are formed on the pitches of Inter Campus, like that of Omar, a Palestinian child, and Ahmed, who is a Syrian refugee.

Omar and Ahmed live next to each other and they’re always together, sharing their passion for video games and football. They are both nine-years-old and live together in the Shatila refugee camp in Beirut. They met four years ago after Ahmed had escaped Syria with his family and arrived in Lebanon.

Shatila is a difficult place, with 30,000 people living together within one square kilometre. However, it is precisely within these type of places where humanity and understandings exist. One only has to consider the welcome of Syrian refugees at the start of the war, who now account for almost half of the camps’ inhabitants.