Mrs. Anissa Rawda Najjar's Report on the Work of the Health Committee of the Lebanese Women's League

There is no house in this city that dengue has not visited and lodged in for a week or two. There is no lady who has not complained of what the cockroach, the moth, and the mouse have ruined for her. There is no expatriate returning to the city who does not complain of its filth and its ugliness, and describe it as backward and fallen behind. These are matters which, had individuals taken care to prevent them and had the competent authorities attended to them, would have saved our pockets much money, and we would have lived happy and respected. Therefore the Health Committee of the Lebanese Women's League, headed by Mrs. Salma Khoury Makdisi, thought of waging an all-out campaign against the filth of the city and the spread of diseases in it: its weapon, faith in the nobility of the work; its mainstay, the support given it by the associations and organizations of the country and by the municipality. Up to this date it has held meetings attended by delegates of the Lebanese Women's League, the Najjadeh organization, the Ghassassineh organization, the Kataeb organization, the Society for the Protection of Juveniles, the Arab Women's Union, the health-education committee of the Cooperation Club, the Israelite Association, and the municipality. The discussion took up, first of all, the aspects of the city's filth, and the members enumerated:

1 — The spread of mosquitoes, cockroaches, rats, and mice.

2 — The existence of open pits for the throwing of refuse.

3 — The spread of children in the crowded streets and their exposure to the danger of microbes and automobiles.

4 — The condition of the workers' houses and the diseases they spread among the rest of the inhabitants.

5 — The lack of public urinals in most quarters and the filth this causes in the streets.

6 — The failure to enforce strictly the ban on throwing water from balconies and beating carpets over the streets.

7 — The existence of stables in the city and the flies they spread.

8 — The manner of collecting refuse from the houses and its irregularity.

And finally, in a general way, the inhabitants' inattention to their duty toward their city: they spit, or throw fruit peels or paper into the streets, or fertilize their crops with refuse and filth, so that epidemics multiply; and they do not complain to the government so that it may fine whoever has a stagnant pool in his house, or opens a sewer onto the street, or the like.

In the face of these charges, the municipality replied that it has:

1 — Taken measures to bring in 200 tons of the insect-killing powder D.D.T. and to distribute it.

2 — Received new automobiles for health work.

3 — Decided upon a new method of collecting refuse from the houses at fixed hours and with special vehicles.

4 — Enacted a new law of penalties for violations, ranging from half a Lebanese lira to fifty liras.

5 — The pursuit of beggars.

6 — The washing of the streets several times a week.

7 — Raising the wages of the workers who perform their duties, and reducing the wages of those who fail in them.

8 — Forbidding the inhabitants to use refuse in fertilizing their crops.

As for the Committee, it formed a special committee, with Mrs. Anna Tabet as president and Doctors Daouk and Debs as members. The work of this committee is to obtain from the government the fulfillment of the general committee's demands. It called on the Governor and met with great encouragement, and the municipality promised:

1 — To supply the D.D.T. powder to the committee to distribute to the inhabitants and to teach them its use against mosquitoes, bedbugs, cockroaches, mice, and moths; and, further, to bear the expenses of health publicity.

2 — To work to create new gardens in the quarters to shelter the children; and finally, to increase the surveillance of the health police and to clean the filthy pits — and in fact the pits in the Saifi and Achrafieh quarters have already been cleaned.

And the Committee saw that reliance on the municipality is not enough, and that it is our national duty that there should be a health independence — from diseases and filth — alongside political independence. It therefore proceeded to divide the districts of the city among ladies, who will form committees of men and women of patriotic zeal and knowledge, and who will work, by means of cards issued by the municipality, to fine everyone who violates the laws and regulations of health. The distribution was as follows:

Ras Beirut district, headed by Madame Adel al-Solh

Ain al-Mreisseh district, headed by Anissa Rawda Najjar

Bachoura district, headed by Hayat Beyhum

The Port district, headed by the Kataeb organization and the Y.W.C.A.

Saifi district, headed by Anna Tabet.

Medawar district, headed by the Kataeb organization

Wadi Abu Jamil district, headed by Madame Shuja.

Zuqaq al-Blat district, headed by Miss Najla Sahyouni

Musaytbeh district, headed by Mrs. Heneni Tarcha

Minet el-Hosn district, headed by Aisha Hammoud.

Rmeil district, organiz[...]

Achrafieh district, headed by Mrs. Christine Rizk and Mrs. Adal Naim
Mazraa district, headed by Mrs. Janette Tadros
And so that the campaign may be complete in equipment and in numbers, the Committee resolved:
To publish a general appeal to the inhabitants to help it.

2 — To draw caricature pictures of health errors and display them in the cinema houses.

3 — To photograph the filthy and the clean places and streets, and to reward the quarter or the person who produces a perceptible improvement in his street or place of work.

4 — To ask the government to build houses for the workers, and to demolish the present houses and rebuild them in keeping with the city as a whole.

5 — To have the government compel every owner whose building contains shops to provide a public urinal in his building; likewise, that the tramway company provide public urinals at the ends of its lines; and finally, the distribution of the municipal laws and regulations to the inhabitants.

6 — That the principals of the schools, men and women, be asked to take part in this campaign, by daily impressing health instructions upon their pupils.

7 — Daily broadcasting on the radio to instruct the people and remind them of their duty.
Serious work begins next week, and the campaign will not succeed if a single individual falls behind in his duty. We are all responsible, and especially the members of this League. Ours it is to advise and guide, then to warn, then to complain to the presidents of the districts concerned. Let us live, in these coming days, as living owners of this country — not as foreign guests in it.