Helena Husseini: Like It's Going To Be The Last Day
Species Unite
elizabeth novogratz
5.0 • 911 Ratings
🗓️ 27 January 2022
⏱️ 42 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Today we are re-sharing one of our favorite episodes, a conversation with Helena Husseini.
I usually live day by day. I always live every day like it's going to be the last day. We learned that during the war. We don't know when we're going to die. So, you live every day like it's going to be the last day. That's what I do."
– Helena Husseini
Helena Husseini is the vice-president of BETA, Beirut Ethical Treatment for Animals. BETA is the first and largest shelter in Lebanon with 850 dogs, many cats, a few horses, and a couple of monkeys.
Helena is also an architect. She has been with BETA since 2006, a few months before the Lebanon War started. As bombs dropped nearby, she drove around in her Jeep saving the injured and abandoned dogs that had been left behind.
Since then, she has been rescuing animals during the too many crises and catastrophes that have plagued Lebanon, including the 2019 financial collapse, the riots, COVID-19, and the blast that decimated Beirut.
This conversation is really one that's about resilience, about grit, about what it means to show up every day, even when bombs are dropping, when there's no access to money, when people are starving, and no one knows what tomorrow will look like.
It's a conversation about what it means to choose the meaningful life. I hope that you are as completely floored by Helena and her stories as I was.
Learn More About BETA
Like BETA on Facebook
Follow BETA on Youtube
Support BETA's "Surviving in Lebanon" fundraiser to provide shelter to their hundreds of rescue animals before they are left without a refuge.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Species, unite, unites. |
| 0:20.8 | and I usually live day by day. I always live every day like it's going to be the last day and we learn that during the war we don't know when you're going to die so you live |
| 0:25.6 | every day like it's going to be the last day that's what I do Hi, I'm Elizabeth Novigrats. This is Species Unite. We have a favor to ask if you like today's episode and you have a spare minute. |
| 0:48.0 | Could you please rate and review Species Unite on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts. It really helps people to find |
| 0:56.7 | the show. Today we're resharing one of our favorite episodes, a conversation with Helenaousseini. |
| 1:18.0 | This conversation is with Elena Assaini. Elena is the vice president of Beata, |
| 1:20.0 | Beirut ethical treatment for animals, and she's an architect. |
| 1:25.0 | Elena's been with Bata since 2006 rescuing animals all over Lebanon. |
| 1:30.0 | This conversation is really one that's about grit, about what it means to show up every |
| 1:36.6 | day, even when bombs are dropping, when there's no access to money, when people are starving. It's a conversation about what it means |
| 1:44.8 | to choose the meaningful life. Hi, Halena. It's so good to see you. |
| 2:03.0 | Hi, how are you? |
| 2:04.4 | Great, thanks. |
| 2:05.8 | So Halena, I hear that you have 10 dogs, |
| 2:08.5 | and I know you live in Beirut. |
| 2:10.4 | What is it like having 10 dogs in the middle of a city of 2 million people? |
| 2:15.0 | I live in a building. I don't live in a home with a backyard. I live in a building. |
| 2:20.0 | Now I'm lucky my father was the architect of the building and a half of the building it's my parents my mom my sisters my brother-in-law it's a family |
| 2:29.8 | but we still have three apartments. |
| 2:32.8 | It's not the regular neighbors. |
| 2:36.4 | At the beginning, they started to complain |
| 2:38.8 | and then they decided to let it go |
... |
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