Houses and other buildings in Ouzai, a poor southern neighborhood of Beirut near the airport, have come alive with color since Ayed Nasser set his heart on rebranding his childhood neighborhood. Nasser, a Lebanese investor and co-founder of real estate company Loft Investments, has attracted both praise and criticism with his Ouzville project.

“We only care of our origins, our religion, our political affiliations, but not our streets,” Nasser told Al-Monitor during a Sept. 16 visit to Ouzai, a neighborhood often associated with violence and crime that is currently bustling with artists and children painting the walls. “This place has been abandoned by politicians and people thinking only about their own interests,” he said.

“I wanted to beautify and unify Lebanon, break the stereotypes of physical Lebanese divisions. I created the name Ouzville for people to start looking at Ouzai, an abandoned place that, after a few months of work, began a big change in the country that everybody is talking about. I have actually been contacted by other municipalities like Chiah and Burj al-Barajneh to explain the process.”

Nasser’s project also aims to clean up the streets. The idea came to him during the garbage crisis of 2015. “It’s pretty much street art from garbage,” he told Al-Monitor. “People here are used to others cleaning their streets, so through art, I pushed the residents to clean up their own streets, because they can only rely on themselves. Not in their party, not in God, but themselves.”