Text of the Opening Address at the Ceremony for the Distribution of Certificates to the Graduates of the Nursing Section of the Lebanese Red Cross

My Lord, Your Excellency the august President,

You have willed to crown our ceremony with your presence, over and above the white hands of favor you have already extended to us, and so you have flooded us with a bounty we can no longer adequately thank. If we have no horses to offer you, nor wealth, and if our tongue falls short of expressing the respect we bear Your Excellency, then we offer you our hearts with all the love and gratitude they hold.

Allow me, then, to lay before Your Excellency and before this noble gathering the results of the work of the Lebanese Red Cross, whose honorary presidency you have condescended to accept, that you may see it has not strayed a finger's breadth from the program you traced for it, ever drawing inspiration from your will: to bring comfort to the poor of Lebanon in particular and to lighten their bodily and spiritual pains.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Six years ago the Lebanese Red Cross was founded through the energy of Her Ladyship Mrs. Laure El-Khoury, wife of His Excellency the revered President of our Republic, with the support of a choice company of Lebanon's devoted ladies and gentlemen. It has worked in a spirit of complete disinterestedness to help the sick who are in need, and the poor, without regard to sect or religion or politics, making its sole concern the comforting of the suffering, and striving to spread a spirit of concord and brotherhood among all the Lebanese, whatever their communities.

It opened twenty dispensaries, distributed through all parts of the Republic, for the free medical treatment of the sick poor. These dispensaries are run by committees of ladies who supervise the work of treatment and first aid and the distribution of the foodstuffs and clothing sent by the central committee or by others for the assistance of the poor.

It founded the detachment of mobile dispensaries, which three times a week visit the distant villages that have no doctors, carrying medicines, with a doctor and three nurses to give relief to the sick poor.

It established a fully stocked pharmacy containing all drugs, with a completely equipped laboratory, to supply all the dispensaries with the necessary medicines and treatments and the required examinations.

It founded the Junior Red Cross branch, so that the spirit of the Red Cross may spread among the young in all the Lebanese schools and beyond them, and they may grow up in a spirit of forbearance, tolerance, concord, good works, and freedom from fanaticism.

It opened workrooms in Beirut, Tripoli, Zahle, and Sidon to prepare all the clothing needed by the little ones of the men of the army and by the poor.

Feeling the country's need of educated nurses holding a legal diploma, it established in 1946 a school for teaching the art of nursing in all its branches, in which the lessons are given by men and women doctors renowned for their scientific attainments, and which graduates every year a number of nurses and assistant nurses.

To date this school has graduated:

First — seventy-nine assistant nurses, who studied one year; twenty-two of them finished this year.

Second — thirty registered nurses, who studied two years, at the end of which they successfully passed an examination before an examining board of doctors, teachers, and the director of the school, earning the nurse's certificate of the Lebanese Red Cross; twelve of them finished this year.

Third — twenty nurses who obtained the certificate of the Lebanese Government, seven of them finishing this year. This government certificate is granted to nurses holding the Lebanese Red Cross certificate in nursing after a third year of study and practice, at the end of which they take an examination before an examining board of seven members: one from the Ministry of Health, another from the Ministry of National Education, together with the chief doctor of the Lebanese Army, the director of the Red Cross, the school's doctors, and its directress. Whoever among them passes the examination before the board with distinction is granted the government's certificate in the art of nursing.

The nurses' school has several branches, among them:

First — the first-aid branch, founded in 1947, from which twenty-seven students have graduated, twelve of them finishing this year.

Second — the children's-nurses branch, founded in 1949, in which lessons are given on how to rear the child and watch over him from the day of his birth until the fifth or sixth year of his age. Four students graduated in this art this year.

Third — the aviation branch, in which they study all the matters of health that must be known at the airports and inside the airplane with the travelers, together with knowledge of the construction and the piloting of the airplane in case of need. Six nurses graduated from this branch this year.

Thus the total of those who have graduated from the nursing school of the Lebanese Red Cross holding the final certificate, in the space of six years, is one hundred and eighty-five students, sixty-three of whom finished this year.

This is a summary of what the Lebanese Red Cross Society has done.

The credit for it belongs to the vigilance of the acting president, the Marquise de Freige, who steers the helm of its work with wisdom and energy, supported by the vice-president, Mrs. Faiza al-Solh, and the ladies who are members of the administrative committee, and the directresses of the school and their assistants — to all of whom abundant thanks are due.

I thank the teaching doctors and the doctors of the dispensaries, who sacrifice long hours of their precious time to give the technical lessons and to treat the poor without charge; and I give special thanks to the doctors and nurses of the mobile dispensaries, who endure wearisome journeys summer and winter to fulfill their duty. May God reward them all on our behalf and on behalf of the poor.

Nor do I forget to thank all the benefactors who have supported the society in its charitable work, whether in the homeland or in the Mahjar.

And I, with the whole family of the Lebanese Red Cross, bow in respect before the devotion of the mother of the Lebanese, Her Ladyship Mrs. Laure El-Khoury, honorary president of the Red Cross, who constantly quickens in us the spirit of diligence and energy, gives us counsel in all our works, and intercedes for us in our needs with her consort, His Excellency. May God restore her to us in perfect health.

In all our affairs we turn to you, Your Excellency, for you are the sole refuge of our society and, with your august government, the nourisher of our treasury; and we hope that you will enfold us in your lofty kindness, that we may always be able to march forward, and that with your help we may raise anew a home worthy of the Lebanese Red Cross in which to shelter it. We ask for Your Excellency long life, and for our dear Lebanon happiness and ease in the shadow of Your Excellency, that our poor may enjoy a life of comfort.

Long live Lebanon and the Lebanese Red Cross, and long live its president, Sheikh Beshara El-Khouri.