Marc Mounah Sawaya

My Journey

My coding journey began in 2020, I was just 14 years old, enjoying my time as a teenager at home during during the pandemic, mid-summer, but then, August 4th came around... The biggest tragedy in the history of the Lebanese Government unfolded that very afternoon and the whole country went to shatters. People, missing, presumably dead, others, leaving, fleeing the country out of fear of what this government was really doing. I was sat there, watching my best friends leaving the country, and I couldn't. This country seperated me from those I love and I was devastated. That's when I knew I had to do something to help those in need and help the country gain attention to this catastrohic event. I decided to code a funding website, which goes directly to my Mum's newly found NGO focused on helping the Red Cross and Local Authorities dig through the rubble and clean the streets of the most affected area of the Beirut Explosion. This is where my journey began, learning basic HTML and JavaScript. I developed the website within a month and when the first dollar came in, a joy fulfilled me that I couldn't describe, so I kept trying to enhance the web page, and since, I raised 600$ for my Mum's "Beyrout Elna" NGO. Even though barely anyone visits the website nowadays, I cannot with good conscience of everyone that went through this take it down, so I have kept it up and running since, you can check 607pm here.