Our Story

CEPAL is a volunteer-run Canadian non-governmental organization (NGO) and registered charity founded in 1995.

For many years, CEPAL’s core program focused on sending Canadian volunteers to teach English in Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon. However, following the 2006 war in Lebanon, CEPAL scaled back its on-the-ground presence to ensure the safety of its volunteers. Ongoing political instability, the Syrian refugee crisis, and the COVID-19 pandemic further limited our ability to operate on-the-ground in Lebanon after 2010.

In response, CEPAL shifted its approach to working with local NGOs in Lebanon to support Palestinian refugee students remotely. This includes through our ongoing online English-language tutoring program in partnership with the Unite Lebanon Youth Project, which began in 2021.

Determined to rebuild our on-the-ground presence in Lebanon and enhance our impact, CEPAL conducted an extensive needs assessment in the spring and summer of 2023. A CEPAL Board Director led this initiative, conducting on-the-ground research in Lebanon and extensive interviews with local NGOs, students, teachers, and parents.

As CEPAL was finalizing this needs assessment and deepening its engagement with local partners, the events of October 7, 2023 unfolded, shifting the regional context. Since then, CEPAL has been carefully monitoring the evolving situation in Palestine and the Middle East and considering how it could expand its work beyond its historic focus on Palestinian refugees in Lebanon.

The result is CEPAL’s newest program, Higher Education Access for Palestine (HEAP), which is launching in late February 2025. CEPAL has been expanding rapidly to support the new program, and will continue to expand to increase the number of displaced Palestinian students that can be supported.