A year after Azadea Foundation’s revival of the 22,000 sqm Rene Mouawad Sanayeh Garden, one of Beirut’s oldest and most popular gardens, around 11,000 are visiting the garden on weekends and 8,000 during weekdays. Added to that, more than 3000 students from 90 different schools, as well NGOs and other associations visited the garden last year. Free bicycle rides are organized as well for orphans on a weekly basis.

The garden is currently being managed by Azadea Foundation who is providing 7 security guards daily during the weekdays and 11 daily during weekends, and has adopted all maintenance costs for the 10 upcoming years (i.e. security, cleaning, water, electricity, fountain and greenery).

Needless to say, it’s great to see so many people visiting the garden and I hope similar initiatives will be taken to reopen other public gardens and more specifically Horch Beirut which has been closed for years by Beirut’s municipality for fear of vandalism and poor maintenance. A lot of people have been asking for the Horch to be reopened for the public but I’m not 100% with this idea without taking the proper measures. Nevertheless, I think Beirut’s municipality should make it its utmost priority to adopt a plan to reopen the Horch and other gardens given that it can easily afford doing so.

Until then, we need more private initiative to increase the number of green spaces in Lebanon and maintain them just like Azadea did with the Sanayeh Garden.

PS: Pets are still not allowed at Sanayeh garden for hygiene purposes (no one picks up his pet’s poop in Lebanon).