Makani

Who we are

Our vision is a world of freedom, dignity and equality for all displaced women and girls.

We work in Lebanon with Syrian and Palestinian refugee women, and in the UK with refugee women from all over the world. In both countries we run therapeutic arts projects including theatre and craft therapy, filmmaking and feminist embroidery. In addition, in Lebanon we also help women through economic empowerment and income generation, access to training and education, and we are responding to the humanitarian crisis with emergency support for displaced families.

Makani was founded in 2022, building upon years of work supporting Syrian and Palestinian refugee women in Lebanon by our co-founders, one of whom is a displaced woman herself. We were officially registered as a charity in June 2024.

We are a small but ambitious organisation that is already transforming the lives of over 100 refugee women and their families in Lebanon, and dozens in the UK. We have rapidly grown over the past two years, with the accompanying rapid increase in income. We are driven by our passion for a better world for marginalised refugee women.

Our culture and values

Our values:

Feminism

Courage

Compassion

Dignity

We believe in:

Refugee women’s inherent strength. 

The power of supportive female communities. When women support each other, anything is possible.

Dignity not dependence. We don’t give hand-outs, we provide opportunities.

Art’s ability to heal, empower and transform lives. 

Artistic excellence. We create a platform for displaced women to show the world what they are capable of.

Equality, diversity and inclusion policy

We are proudly led by people with lived experience of displacement. We exist to champion gender and migrant justice, and this is inherent in all we do, not just at the level of policies and procedures (though we have those too), but in the way we live our values on a daily basis.