• Fri October 30 2026 12:05 pm

“I knew how to cook. I knew how to organize kitchens. I had a team that knew how to feed people. So instead of asking, ‘What did I lose?’ the question became, ‘What can I still give?’”

For Chef Aline Kamakian, food was never simply a profession. It was a connection to heritage, family, and generations that came before her.

That connection found a home in Beirut through Mayrig. Founded in 2003, the restaurant became a place where Armenian recipes passed down from one generation to the next could live on. For the Armenian community in Lebanon, it was a taste of home. For those discovering Armenian cuisine for the first time, it offered a glimpse into another culture and another history. A familiar flavor could transport someone back to a grandmother’s kitchen, a mother’s cooking, or a memory they thought they had forgotten.

For almost two decades, Aline built that home.

Then, in a matter of seconds, everything changed.

6:07 p.m.

August 4, 2020, was supposed to feel like a beginning.

Lebanon was already struggling through the COVID-19 pandemic and a severe economic crisis. But that day carried a small sense of normality. Lockdown restrictions had eased. Restaurants were reopening. People were returning to the streets of Beirut.

At Mayrig, the restaurant was busy. The team had returned to work, with meetings to hold, guests to welcome, and an evening service ahead.

Then came 6:07 p.m.

A sound tore through Beirut.

Glass shattered. Buildings were devastated. In seconds, an ordinary working day became a scene of destruction. The fear, uncertainty, and helplessness of that moment would stay with those who experienced it long after the sound of the explosion had disappeared.

Aline and her colleagues were attending a management meeting on the third floor of the building when the explosion struck. Everyone in the meeting was badly injured. Across her team, more than 28 people were hospitalized because of their injuries, and seven team members were left partially disabled.

For Aline, those figures can never simply be statistics.

They were colleagues. Friends. People she knew. People she loved.

In the immediate aftermath, there was barely time to understand what had happened. There were people bleeding and crying for help, shattered glass and debris everywhere. With no immediate medical assistance available, those who could move had to help those who could not.

A broken door became a stretcher.

One team member had suffered severe injuries to his eyes. Despite their own injuries, shock, and exhaustion, Aline and her colleagues placed him on a stretcher” and carried him downstairs.

“In that moment, it was either we carried him out, or we risked leaving him there to die.”

There was no time to process the trauma. There was only the person in front of them who needed help.

As Aline recalls, “At first, you simply react. You check who is alive. You look for your team, your family, your friends. You help whoever is in front of you with whatever strength you have left.”

And Beirut began to act.

One meal at a time

The devastation stretched far beyond the walls of one restaurant.

Across Beirut, people had lost homes, businesses, livelihoods, loved ones and a sense of safety. Entire lives had changed in seconds.

And yet, among the shattered glass and rubble, people began picking up the brooms.

After hours of cleaning and helping those around them, exhausted, hungry, and thirsty, Aline and her team asked for food to be sent from their central kitchens that were still able to operate.

When the food arrived, they looked around.

People were hungry. Many had lost access to basic necessities. Something as ordinary as food suddenly felt precious.

“So we shared.”

That simple decision became the beginning of something much bigger.

The team began cooking with whatever stock had survived or could be saved from their kitchens. One meal became ten. Ten became hundreds. Volunteers arrived. More people joined. What had begun as an instinctive response to the people immediately around them started to grow.

Cooking became more than feeding people. It became a form of therapy.

People who had experienced the same collective trauma stood together, cooking, serving and helping others. Those who had been injured returned as soon as they were well enough to contribute.

They could not rebuild Beirut overnight. They could not undo what had happened.

But they could make the next meal.

And then another.

“We were healing each other without even realizing it.”

It was that growing response that caught the attention of Chef José Andrés, founder of World Central Kitchen (WCK), a humanitarian organization later recognized as a 2025 honoree of the Zayed Award for Human Fraternity. José Andrés came to Beirut, beginning a relationship that would allow what Aline and her team had started with the resources they had left to grow into something far greater.

WCK understood that the people already on the ground knew their communities best. Rather than replacing what was happening locally, it helped strengthen it.

That support meant ingredients could be purchased, kitchens activated, people employed and meals delivered to communities more quickly.

Her relationship with WCK continued long after August 4. Aline became part of the organization's Chef Corps, and when Lebanon faced new emergencies, the kitchens mobilized again.

When conflict escalated along Lebanon's southern border and families began leaving their villages, they returned to what they knew how to do: they cooked. As displacement spread, the response grew, eventually reaching more than 50,000 meals a day through kitchens across the country.

What began during one of Beirut's darkest moments had become a lasting commitment to feeding people with dignity.

Because during a crisis, a meal is never only a meal.

It is nourishment, but it is also a message:

“You are not alone. Someone sees you. Someone cares that you eat today.”

Aline had always believed that food brought people together.

After August 4, she understood that food could also help hold people together.

When compassion becomes action

Over time, Aline's understanding of hospitality grew beyond the walls of her restaurants. Today, she no longer separates her professional work from her responsibility toward her community.

“Compassion is not only feeling someone's pain. It is asking what you can actually do about it. Solidarity means standing beside people, not above them.”

That philosophy is also reflected in the mission of the Zayed Award for Human Fraternity, which recognizes individuals and organizations whose contributions advance human fraternity, solidarity and peaceful coexistence.

For Aline, seeing World Central Kitchen recognized as a 2025 honoree carried a deeply personal meaning.

“It was deeply meaningful because the recognition goes far beyond World Central Kitchen as an organization. It recognizes an entire philosophy of responding to crisis through humanity, dignity and action.”

She knows what that philosophy looks like on the ground.

It looks like chefs and restaurant workers standing over stoves for hours. It looks like drivers, volunteers and suppliers finding ways to keep going under extraordinarily difficult circumstances. It looks like local communities coming together because somewhere, someone needs to be fed.

Her own journey with the Chef Corps was later captured in an award-winning short film produced by the Zayed Award for Human Fraternity, which received honors at the Webby Awards and the Cannes Corporate Media & TV Awards.

But Aline never wanted audiences to watch the film and see only a story about her.

“I wanted them to see what ordinary people are capable of doing for one another in extraordinary circumstances.”

August 4 is part of her story, as is the conflict Lebanon has endured. But those experiences do not belong to her alone. They belong to thousands of people who have experienced loss, displacement and uncertainty.

For Aline, if someone watches her story and walks away thinking, “I can do something too,” then its most important message has been heard.

As the Zayed Award for Human Fraternity looks toward its 2027 honorees, Aline believes recognition plays an important role in bringing attention to people whose contributions might otherwise go unnoticed.

“Because recognition gives good work visibility, and visibility can multiply its impact.”

Recognizing their contributions can offer a larger platform, connect them with others and help their work continue and grow. It also sends a message to the next generation about the values worth protecting and carrying forward.

But for Aline, what matters most is not recognition itself. It is the willingness to act.

People who do not wait for perfect circumstances or permission before helping. People who listen to their communities and understand what is genuinely needed. People who bring others together rather than dividing them.

“Impact is important, but humanity is not always measurable. Sometimes changing one person's life can create a ripple that reaches hundreds of others.”

Perhaps that is what Aline's own story has come to represent.

What began with a simple act of sharing food grew into a humanitarian response that reached thousands, showing how even the smallest actions can create lasting change.

As Aline puts it:

“They see a need, they understand that they can contribute something, and they say: ‘I'm here. What can I do?’”