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How one Palestinian cafe in Lebanon is breaking stereotypes

A Palestinian refugee from the Rashidiya camp in southern Lebanon has invested all his money to open a cafe in another Palestinian refugee camp in Beirut, offering space to young refugees to blow off steam.
Beirut, Lebanon, 3 June 2016 - A woman on her phone in Jafra café, which is located in the Palestinian refugee camp in Bourj al-Barajneh, Beirut, Lebanon. The café was founded in April 2015 by 34-year old Palestinian musician Ashraf El-Chouli, and is the first mixed meeting place in the camp.
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BURJ EL-BARAJNEH, Lebanon — Nassar al-Tanji is sitting at the bar at Jafra cafe talking to friends. He is a 20-year-old Palestinian refugee originally from the Yarmouk refugee camp in Damascus, Syria. He became a refugee twice in 2011 when he fled his war-torn home in Syria. For Tanji, Jafra cafe is a unique place in the Burj el-Barajneh camp in Beirut, where he can meet with other men and women, have discussions and not be harassed, breaking the existing gender barriers in the camp. Here, he has a space where he can interact with others and not be frowned upon by onlookers.

Founded in April 2015 by Palestinian musician Ashraf el-Chouli, who invested his life savings to open it, Jafra is the first mixed meeting place in the camp. Here, young men and women can go to read in its small library, listen to music or meet visiting guests from outside the camp, many of them musicians, including Palestinian singer and international star Mohammed Assaf who sang and played music with Chouli at Jafra for an evening.

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