Activity Report 2010 - Sovereign Military Order of Malta in the United ...

Lebanon
In every clinic, every day,
Christians and Muslims wait,
shoulder to shoulder
TOTAL AREA:
10,452 sq km
POPULATION:
4,017,095
GDP
PER CAPITA:
$11,100
LIFE EXPECTANCY
AT BIRTH:
73.66 years
In the hills behind Beirut the
majestic cedars of Lebanon
bow over this land of
richness and turmoil,
this historic cradle of
Christianity. Today, the
country is recovering from
war and chaos again,
building lives and livelihoods
again, from out of the most
recent damage. Beirut
savours another rebirth.
But in the countryside life
is hard and the people poor.
They need health care and
training and work - and hope
for their future and the
future of their children.
The Lebanese Association
of the Order of Malta, in
recognising these needs,
has for many years now
supported the needy and the
sick, in the Order’s age old
tradition of caring for all.
In its ten health care centres,
spread over the country from
the north to the south, to the
borders with Syria and with
Israel, the same mission is
practised, day in, day out,
with the same dedication to
helping all who call on them
for assistance. In every
clinic, every day, Christians
and Muslims sit shoulder
to shoulder as they wait
patiently to be attended to
by the Order’s staff.
The Caravan project
An international project launched by the Lebanese and German Associations of the
Order in mid 2009 – the Caravan project - gives young people the opportunity to
carry out social work abroad within the Order’s programmes. With Caravan,
the young participants will have a preparation programme on the Middle East,
Christianity and Islam in the region, and the spirituality of the Order’s mission to
serve the marginalised in society. They will learn Arabic and care for the handicapped
young and the poor. They will then spend six months in the medical centres
the Order runs in the Lebanon.
For more information, see www.libanonprojekt.de
O
ur correspondent went to
observe the work of the
Order of Malta in the
Lebanon
Visits to the Order’s
projects are planned to span out over a
week and cover many miles and many
situations across the region. The first is
to a small town near Sidon. It operates a
medical centre and a mobile unit for
outlying areas. With a medical staff of 12
the Centre carries out over 8,500
medical acts per year, treating people
from all the surrounding villages,
providing medical and dental care, a
pharmacy and a laboratory. Both here
and in the other Centres we visit, we
meet numbers of doctors and dentists
who have been trained abroad and who
have come home to help their own
people.
The Mobile Unit is operated by the Order
of Malta, in collaboration with the Iman
El Sadr Foundation which provides a
health care clinic and a school for 400
girls – one of the few for girls in the
region. Mme Rabab el Sadr
Cherafeddine, President of the
Foundation, has run the centre for the
last 25 years, seen many changes and
known many sadnesses, including
losing 34 members of her own family in
the 2006 bombing. Today the Mobile Unit
is in the main square of a local village,
in front of a memorial to Hezbollah
soldiers. The queue of arrivals from ten
surrounding villages is long: the Unit’s
doctor and nurses are literally lifesavers.
The patients stand quietly in
line, smiling shyly at us. Behind them,
a sunray spills across the many tomb-
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SOVEREIGN MILITARY HOSPITALLER ORDER OF ST. JOHN OF JERUSALEM OF RHODES AND OF MALTA