Our Story

Horshna started with a group of educators and families united in our search for alternative structures and values in raising our children and future generations. Our founding community is active in diverse creative and cultural initiatives in Lebanon, and highly values artistic practice and community involvement.

In 2018, we had a series of conversations between Beirut and Saida where we were introduced to the Forest School ethos by Lynn and Ismail from Nohye El Ard Community Garden. Intrigued, we connected with Yasmine Eid Sabbagh who started Ses Milanes forest school in Spain.

In September of that year, our founder and lead educator took the first concrete step and volunteered at the Ses Milanes forest school. Upon returning to Beirut the following year, she was inspired to initiate a forest program with the families she was in conversation with.

In 2019, with four excited and committed families in Beirut, we organized a Sunday Forest Program in the public park of Horsh Beirut during the months of May and June. The program was joyful and all of us felt the positive effects on the children.

In June, we reflected together on the experience and took the decision to start a full year forest program, beginning in October, 2019.

We agreed that we needed to collectively work together as a community to make this happen. We had several meetings where we discussed and decided on everything from potties to to our relationship with the municipality.

On October 1, 2019 we took a leap of faith and began our first day at Horshna.

On October 1, 2019, we began our forest program in Horsh Beirut with 3 children, a group that would grow to 8 children by the end of the year.

We faced several challenges the first year that we were able to overcome thanks to the resourcefulness and participation of our community.

We were committed to running our program in Horsh Beirut, as one of the few green and public spaces in the city. This required a permit from the Beirut Governor, which took time and effort.

On the ground, we asserted ourselves gently by our daily presence, and built relationships with the Municipal guards at the Horsh.

The parent community had a great role in negotiating our relationship with the Governor and Municipality.

With the start of the revolution in Beirut on October 17, Horshna’s children and educators spent the first week in Martyr’s Square, helping with clean-up efforts and making art together.

Shortly after, we returned to our program in Horsh Beirut to give the children a sense of stability despite the changes happening around them.

Over this period, Horshna welcomed siblings and friends whose schools closed for periods of time due to the revolution.

In January 2020, in response to the economic crisis, we collectively agreed to change our care fees to a sliding scale model where families pay according to their ability. This helped accommodate families who were affected by the crisis.

We formed the Finance Working Group, which was a group of parents who worked closely with Horshna’s management to develop a fair sliding scale model that adapts to the changing circumstances.

In March, 2020, Horsh Beirut closed for over a year due to the Corona lockdown.

When the lockdown started to ease up in May, we had several meetings to come up with a Corona Protocol that would help the children and educators return safely to the forest.

As Horsh Beirut was still closed, Baabda Forest was suggested as a possible new location.

Finally, in June 2020, we returned physically to our program in Baabda Forest.

During the Corona crisis in the year to come, our community model and the developed protocol helped us keep our doors open when many schools in the country had to implement an online or hybrid program.