College des Soeurs des Saints Coeurs - Batroun
This aid project was started in May 2023
This is the latest update, from November 2025.
After two and a half years, the travel advisory was lowered from red to orange, and it was finally safe to travel to Lebanon again. SSCC Batroun was on my list of places to visit this time, after I had already contacted them via Teams earlier this year.
The first meeting was with Sister Aline, Mariette and head TD Gaby, among others. Bart is with Mariette, who is the school's IT specialist.
On Wednesday 19 November 2025, Sister Aline, Mariette Tanous (IT) and Gaby Moufarrej (building management and maintenance) welcomed us together with Bert, Jeannet, Charles and Georges.
After a friendly chat to welcome us, we took a tour of the school. This gave us a good impression of the building, the infrastructure and the challenges. The part of the school that's by the sea, on the ground and first floors, is more than 100 years old and has a fantastic architectural style. This makes it tricky to install cabling without changing the look.
On the morning tour of the building, it quickly became clear that Gaby had done his best last summer to hide the network cables. The whole thing looked very neat and tidy. The old part of the school has very thick walls, which makes it hard to get Wi-Fi. There are also three computer rooms, which look well maintained. Computers and laptops are covered with cloths when not in use.
After the tour, we are offered a delicious lunch. Bert, Jeannet and Charles then start to make plans for the first floor, as the original drawings are not available.
I start with a session on a whiteboard with Sister Aline, Mariette and Gaby, which is very informative. The challenges are also discussed.
When I zoom in on the network, I see that it's very easily interfered with, with lots of connections linked together. Moving between different access points and back to a single access point with multiple ports, which again "extends" the connection to more distant systems such as PCs, printers, and access points. Put simply, too many devices are connected one after the other. If something goes wrong at the front of the chain (it could be as simple as disconnecting a network cable), the rest of the chain is immediately affected, meaning no more connection.
Wifi routers connected one after the other, one per room because of thick walls
A lot of the equipment uses 100Mb instead of Gigabit speeds, which isn't good for the speed of the local network. To solve this problem, we would need to install new cables throughout the building. This would allow each device to connect directly to a network switch that we would install in a central location. If there's a problem with the cable, only the device that's connected will be affected, and everything else can still work.
The current network server, a Dell EMC PowerEdge, is still working fine. It already has two SSD drives (in mirror setup) and 16 GB of memory. We just want to upgrade the operating system, Windows Server 2016 Essentials, to Windows 2022 Server Standard. The upgrade is difficult because we want to change the size of the partition, and we have to do other things as well. We decided to back up the data and reinstall the machine with the new software. We also add two 4TB hard drives, which are set up in a mirror configuration. This means that if the hard drive stops working, the system will still be able to run and you won't lose any data. This server will be the new domain controller for the network in Batroun.
We can use a 19-inch rack that is already at the top of the building as a central location for managed switches in the future.
We already use fibre optic connections at two places in the school to cover longer distances (>100 metres). We can definitely use these in the future to connect network switches at gigabit speed.
The school's internet connection is an ADSL connection. This connection is not stable and has limited bandwidth. The current internet speed is only 20 megabits per second for downloading and 5 megabits per second for uploading, which is very slow for a school. We've already done a test with a different internet provider that uses fibre optics. There is a chance that a switch will be made soon.
The current internet connection is managed by a commercial company, and we do not yet have access to it. This means we do not have a clear picture of how everything is configured. The MicroTek router might do firewall functions, but it's not clear.
The school would like to have a good network server so that data can be stored and shared in one place. They would also like to start working with user accounts. There is not enough time to set this up straight away. I'll set up the rest remotely later with Mariette.
We had already sent a FortiGate firewall to this school in a previous delivery of equipment. At first, we couldn't find it, but it turned out to have been used as a network switch. Surprisingly, it still worked well with the settings that came with it. Unfortunately, we were not yet able to use this firewall.
After explaining how the new Aruba WiFi access points work, the first ones were put into use.
In the last few days, we have talked about lots of problems and fixed a few network issues. Most importantly, we have talked about what to do next. The internet connection, the problems with the physical cabling and where the managed network switches are placed in the building are particularly important. There's plenty to think about and decide what to do next.
On Friday afternoon, Bert, Jeannet, Charles and George come to pick me up again. After saying goodbye, we head for Byblos.
Written by Bart Timmermans.
If you would also like to help, please donate to NL71 ABNA 0118 7463 91 in the name of VVL Veteranen Libanon
Team Batroun – Sr Aline, Mariette, Gaby en Bart