BEIRUT: Marche de Noel opened Wednesday at the French Institute in Beirut, bringing together artisanal goods produced by non-profit organizations and individual entrepreneurs for a four-day sale.

“Marche de Noel has set up 18 stands, nine of them associations, that offer artisanal goods, and many environmental and recyclable products,” said Marielle Maroun, press relations manager at the French Institute.

The market offers a wide array of goods – from handmade jewelry to traditional Lebanese food products and embroidered bags, silks and scarves. As a not-for-profit event, all proceeds from sales go back to the participating organizations or entrepreneurs.

“Our main purpose is not commercial,” said Maroun, but rather “for the associations to develop themselves.” The stands are free for the participants and the individual entrepreneurs are, as Maroun described, “all women with their own small businesses. We are trying to encourage and support them.”

Among the associations is Movement Social, a charitable organization with many educational and socio-economic development programs. At their booth they are selling leather and wooden goods produced by teenage and women prisoners in Lebanon.

“The profit goes just to pay for the raw materials and to the prisoners for when they are released,” said Rana Jammal of Movement Social.

Association Alpha, an organization set up to benefit children in South Lebanon, is selling bookmarks, notebooks and other goods that incorporate artwork produced by the children they work with who have experienced war.

The money they make at the market will help fund the organization’s five centers around the south and go toward a new child protection program that the association is launching in coordination with the French Institute, said Association Alpha program officer, Nina Betoti.

“Even though the war is over, there are many chronic problems in the South that we try to address,” she added.

A number of women’s collectives are selling their goods at the French Institute. The Namlieh Cooperative of Lebanese Women, a program of the Collective for Research and Training on Development-Action, is offering traditional Lebanese food products – jams, syrups, wines, biscuits, soaps and marzipan – produced by 35 cooperatives from different villages.

“[Our products] are all natural and from all around the country, produced on Lebanese land,” proudly stated Natalie Shemily from the marketing unit of Namlieh.

Besides food and handicrafts, there are a number of stands selling handbags, linens and embroidered goods.

The Sanabel Association has traveled from Damascus to show off the beautiful embroidery produced by Palestinian women in Syria.

Nadima Kremit, from Sanabel, explained that the embroidered pillow covers, bags and scarves are produced by Palestinian women who have a difficult time leaving their homes to work. Sanabel gives them patterns and sets up these women during small workshops, so they can do their embroidery from home and bring in an income otherwise unavailable to their families.

Marche de Noel runs until Saturday. Maroun hopes that the event will benefit all of the associations and make this festival into an annual event to benefit even more non-profits in Lebanon.

“This is the first edition, but the next year will bring … more associations.”

Marche de Noel is open Thursday and Friday 1 p.m. to 7:30 p.m., and 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday.