"At present, the livelihoods team can afford only to work in 18 of the 66 villages.
Because of AIDS, farming skills are being lost, agricultural development efforts are declining, rural livelihoods are disintegrating, productive capacity to work the land is dropping and household earnings are shrinking -- all while the cost of caring for the ill is rising exponentially.
Many of them herd animals for their livelihoods, and children are expected to work.
Given the tragedy which unfolded last week we immediately extended this deadline, but the vast majority of our workforce, and their families, who rely on our mine for their livelihood, have now been unable to work for more than a week".
Those who raised concerns about the creaking structure were offered a stark ultimatum: go to work, or lose your livelihood.
The essayist, like the government, worries about mothers who "instead of being able to work for their honest livelihood, are forced to employ all their time… for their helpless infants".
Like most Syrians outside of the country, and notably the 5 million-plus who are living in neighboring countries, Syrians in Lebanon cannot easily get work permits, making their capacity to work and sustain a livelihood incredibly difficult.
On the Somerset Levels, farmers who are facing a threat to their livelihoods, are working to protect their animals and land.
At other times, as happened among many Jews in the garment industry and Italians in construction, the children raise their parents' livelihood to new levels, working as designers and dress manufacturers rather than cutters and sewing-machine operators, becoming the construction contractors on skyscrapers rather than toiling as stonemasons.
Jina Krause-Vilmar, Director at the Near East Foundation (NEF), is an expert in refugees, livelihoods and gender, working to create safe pathways to economic resilience for crisis-affected women and adolescent girls for the past 10 years.
