HOME FOR Magazine – with its debut issue HOME FOR Christmas, is a well – traveled magazine that reaches out in print to more than 200 destinations around the world and with its online version, the reach extends to the rest of the globe. HOME For Magazine is about Lebanon, the Lebanese all over the world and what links them together-from style, to culture, to people, their heritage, and the “giving back side of life.”
“HOME For Christmas” is a comprehensive approach to Christmas, paying homage to the abundant givers who contribute to Lebanon through their success, philanthropy, corporate activism, advocacy and volunteerism.
We are a platform for promoting Lebanese talent, businesses and accomplished dreams, through a 360-degrees approach magazine. Home For Magazine represents the Lebanon we are, the Lebanon we aspire to be, and the energy we radiate to our non-Lebanese friends with particular insights into our daily lives, both HOME and abroad, through written and visual articles.
The Lebanese and their blended families may be known for their beautiful and elegant women, for their outings, for fun entertainment and for their sophisticated and lavish lifestyle, but they are much more than this. The Lebanese have always been pioneers in the cultural, design and art scenes. They are about quality education, quality healthcare, they are about resilience; and about supporting each other by alleviating wounds of their families both in and outside Lebanon. They are about lives with missions.
Lebanon is not only about our lively cities, it is also about our quiet villages, our heritage, our culinary legacy and traditions; It is about our olive trees and the simplicity and goodness of our people, about our mountains with fresh air on a summer night and the Mediterranean seashore, our window to the world. It is about the smell of our soil, especially after rain. It is about diversity – of weather, scenery and people. It is about a nation that deserves to live in abundance of intellect and prosperity.
An authentic Lebanese person is about freedom, character and determination. We believe that all “people are born to shine” and that everyone is called on to shine in his own special way.*
I personally find tremendous joy in the progress of others, especially women, having come from a background of advocacy for Women’s leadership in Civil Society. I tend to believe that our roots help us grow and the more rooted the tree is, the bigger it can develop in length and width, as it gains the ability to spread its branches here and around the world. It is true that Our Lebanon is suffering from various chronic illnesses, that is why our land needs us. I feel as a mother does when her child is sick; it is through such hard times that the child cries out for her the most.
This inaugural issue of Home For Magazine celebrates Christmas, when Christians honor the birth of Jesus. We will be celebrating other faiths as well, sharing our traditions and experiences with each other, and enriching each other’s lives – our way of peacebuilding. We believe that with love we are always closer to God.
On our cover is Miss Lebanese Emigrant 2014, a young Lebanese woman from Casablanca who, carries freshness, depth, hope and adoration for her motherland, the soul of this magazine.
How exciting is the era where we can live HOME even when we are miles away. This bitter sweet painful feeling we carry with us to all the fascinating countries we visit or adopt. I carried HOME with me for 10 years when I was living in beautiful Greece.
Apart from our professional editorial team writing for the magazine, and interviews with inspiring people, we have an exceptional team of volunteer writers mainly from the Lebanese Diaspora, who each have something worth sharing, and today have a platform to express it. We hope the passion we put in all of our articles will be an inspiration to all of you.
A magazine is work in progress. We invite you to get engaged. Please send your comments and potential articles, photos and contributions to publishing@pidraya.net. Expect HOME For the Summer next-we make a better magazine by taking our time. Please stay connected by looking for us on your favorite social media platforms.
Finally, I would like to thank the HOME For Christmas team and contributors for their sleepless nights and passionate involvement. Additionally, I would especially like to thank our first partners/ sponsors who believed in this project and who continue to believe in positive progressive change, who lead with their minds and hearts and are willing to take the risk to encourage new initiatives and don’t just “play it safe.” You will always be special to us.
It is with businesses, organizations and people like yourselves that we can create a cosmopolitan Lebanese magazine, a beautiful and meaningful one that holds beauty, peace and hope, our country and the true spirit of Christmas at its core.
Patricia Bitar Cherfan
Social Entrepreneur| Founder
HOMEland Magazine
We firmly believe that the internet should be available and accessible to anyone, and are committed to providing a website that is accessible to the widest possible audience, regardless of circumstance and ability.
To fulfill this, we aim to adhere as strictly as possible to the World Wide Web Consortium’s (W3C) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.1 (WCAG 2.1) at the AA level. These guidelines explain how to make web content accessible to people with a wide array of disabilities. Complying with those guidelines helps us ensure that the website is accessible to all people: blind people, people with motor impairments, visual impairment, cognitive disabilities, and more.
This website utilizes various technologies that are meant to make it as accessible as possible at all times. We utilize an accessibility interface that allows persons with specific disabilities to adjust the website’s UI (user interface) and design it to their personal needs.
Additionally, the website utilizes an AI-based application that runs in the background and optimizes its accessibility level constantly. This application remediates the website’s HTML, adapts Its functionality and behavior for screen-readers used by the blind users, and for keyboard functions used by individuals with motor impairments.
If you’ve found a malfunction or have ideas for improvement, we’ll be happy to hear from you. You can reach out to the website’s operators by using the following email
Our website implements the ARIA attributes (Accessible Rich Internet Applications) technique, alongside various different behavioral changes, to ensure blind users visiting with screen-readers are able to read, comprehend, and enjoy the website’s functions. As soon as a user with a screen-reader enters your site, they immediately receive a prompt to enter the Screen-Reader Profile so they can browse and operate your site effectively. Here’s how our website covers some of the most important screen-reader requirements, alongside console screenshots of code examples:
Screen-reader optimization: we run a background process that learns the website’s components from top to bottom, to ensure ongoing compliance even when updating the website. In this process, we provide screen-readers with meaningful data using the ARIA set of attributes. For example, we provide accurate form labels; descriptions for actionable icons (social media icons, search icons, cart icons, etc.); validation guidance for form inputs; element roles such as buttons, menus, modal dialogues (popups), and others. Additionally, the background process scans all the website’s images and provides an accurate and meaningful image-object-recognition-based description as an ALT (alternate text) tag for images that are not described. It will also extract texts that are embedded within the image, using an OCR (optical character recognition) technology. To turn on screen-reader adjustments at any time, users need only to press the Alt+1 keyboard combination. Screen-reader users also get automatic announcements to turn the Screen-reader mode on as soon as they enter the website.
These adjustments are compatible with all popular screen readers, including JAWS and NVDA.
Keyboard navigation optimization: The background process also adjusts the website’s HTML, and adds various behaviors using JavaScript code to make the website operable by the keyboard. This includes the ability to navigate the website using the Tab and Shift+Tab keys, operate dropdowns with the arrow keys, close them with Esc, trigger buttons and links using the Enter key, navigate between radio and checkbox elements using the arrow keys, and fill them in with the Spacebar or Enter key.Additionally, keyboard users will find quick-navigation and content-skip menus, available at any time by clicking Alt+1, or as the first elements of the site while navigating with the keyboard. The background process also handles triggered popups by moving the keyboard focus towards them as soon as they appear, and not allow the focus drift outside it.
Users can also use shortcuts such as “M” (menus), “H” (headings), “F” (forms), “B” (buttons), and “G” (graphics) to jump to specific elements.
We aim to support the widest array of browsers and assistive technologies as possible, so our users can choose the best fitting tools for them, with as few limitations as possible. Therefore, we have worked very hard to be able to support all major systems that comprise over 95% of the user market share including Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari, Opera and Microsoft Edge, JAWS and NVDA (screen readers).
Despite our very best efforts to allow anybody to adjust the website to their needs. There may still be pages or sections that are not fully accessible, are in the process of becoming accessible, or are lacking an adequate technological solution to make them accessible. Still, we are continually improving our accessibility, adding, updating and improving its options and features, and developing and adopting new technologies. All this is meant to reach the optimal level of accessibility, following technological advancements. For any assistance, please reach out to