Helping My Father Close a 13-Year-Old Family Debt
This campaign is to help my father close a family debt that has been ongoing for more than 13 years, following a business bankruptcy in 2012 that changed our lives completely.
In 2012, while I was in my second year at the Lebanese American University (LAU) in Beirut, my brother was a fresh graduate, and my sister was in London completing her postgraduate studies. At that time, my father’s business had already collapsed, but the full reality was known only to my parents and my elder brother. My sister and I were only told that my father was facing “financial difficulties.” In reality, the situation was far more serious.
Our family business consisted of several shops in Lebanon selling used Mercedes-Benz spare parts. In 2011, my father attempted to expand into car trading through auctions in the United States. To finance this expansion, he took formal loans from banks and borrowed additional money from coworkers and contacts within the same industry, based on personal trust and verbal agreements.
The borrowed capital was then transferred to a supposed business partner in the United States, whom my father trusted based on recommendations. There were no effective safeguards in place. The funds were lost, the expansion failed, and the business collapsed.
Once the transferred funds were lost, my father was no longer able to service the original bank loans or repay the coworkers who had lent him money. To avoid immediate legal action, bank enforcement, and the seizure of our family home under mortgage guarantees, he borrowed additional money from relatives and from more people within the same industry. These later borrowings were not for growth or expansion, but purely to manage repayments, interest, and urgent obligations and to keep the situation from collapsing overnight. This created a damaging cycle where new borrowing was used to cover previous obligations.
As a result, by 2012, our total debt exceeded USD 800,000, spread across formal bank loans, coworkers and industry contacts, and relatives who stepped in to prevent total collapse. Banks began threatening to seize our family home, and creditors appeared at our house, shops demanding repayment. Deadlines, pressure, threats, and fear became constant. This marked the beginning of more than a decade of severe financial and emotional strain on our family.
For years, my father lived under intense responsibility and pressure. His focus became short-term survival: managing one obligation to delay another, selling inventory to survive rather than to grow, and constantly reacting to crises. This prolonged pressure affected his ability to think clearly or plan long-term. My brother joined the business with the intention of helping and rebuilding it, but quickly realized that without transparency and with the business already structurally damaged, continuing together would only deepen the losses. After repeated conflicts with my father, he made the difficult decision to separate his work from my father’s business. This was not abandonment, but a necessary step to prevent total collapse and protect what could still be saved for the family.
For my sister, my brother, and myself, many personal life decisions were postponed for years. Family responsibility always came first.
From 2012 onward, our family sold assets, reduced our living standards, and prioritized debt repayments above everything else. My father eventually stopped operating the spare-parts business and joined a small exchange business with a relative to generate basic income. My brother later closed his own spare-parts activity due to Lebanon’s economic collapse and started a new small business simply to survive. I have worked in many places since 2014 in and outisde of Lebanon and since 2019, I have been working withing the international humanitarian organizations on assignment-based contracts, often abroad. Whenever I am employed, a significant portion of my income goes directly toward supporting my parents and servicing the remaining debts.
At the same time, I maintain limited security savings, not for comfort or growth, but strictly for unexpected situations, such as sudden family needs or ensuring continuity of payments to elderly creditors who rely on our monthly commitments and do not have insurance.
As of today, the total remaining family debt is approximately USD 162,000, owed to two maternal aunts in their seventies and to the family of a close childhood friend of my father. All parties are fully aware of the situation and have been receiving gradual repayments for many years. For 2026, I have committed to covering USD 10,000 in repayments from my personal income, while my brother and sister are facing financial struggles and will not be able to contribute. In parallel, our family still owns three former business shops(Related to the previous spare parts business), which are currently for sale. Based on realistic market expectations, we estimate their sale value at approximately USD 100,000.
If these two elements are achieved, USD 10,000 paid during 2026 and USD 100,000 from the sale of the shops, the expected remaining debt at the beginning of 2027 will be approximately USD 52,000. This campaign is specifically to raise that final USD 52,000 by end of 2026 to close this 13-year chapter.
Closing this remaining amount would bring an end to a debt that once exceeded USD 800,000, relieve elderly family members who are creditors themselves, and help ensure that, God forbid, no future complications or misunderstandings arise for our cousins or extended family if unexpected events occur. It will also allow me and my siblings to focus on our own future lives. Above all, it would allow my parents, now in their mid-60s, to finally live with peace of mind after years of pressure and to see there smile again.
These obligations arose from a mix of formal bank loans and informal trust-based borrowing, which is common in family and small-business environments. The amounts are clearly known, acknowledged by all parties involved, and tracked internally. I am committed to sharing regular progress updates, maintaining transparent tracking of repayments, and using all funds raised exclusively for debt repayment.
This campaign is not about lifestyle support or financial growth. It is about responsibly closing a long-standing family obligation and allowing a family to finally move forward after a collapse that began in 2012. Thank you for taking the time to read and for any support you may be able to offer.
