The Crippled Children's Center Spends 18,000 Lira a Month — and Takes In Only 3,200?? (Reportage)

In Hazmieh, on a green hill overlooking the city of Beirut, stands the Father Cortbawi Foundation — that great institution whose hand upon humanity is remembered with praise and appreciation.

It has stopped a wide breach in our unjust social order and softened its harshness, by making possible for hundreds of deprived children and young people a healthy, balanced life, and by securing for them, along with basic schooling, a manual trade to help them face life.

The Crippled Children's Center

We are here to speak of a special wing, the newest thing established in the Father Cortbawi Foundation, going back no more than a year: I mean the Crippled Children's Center — for it is the only center of its kind in our Arab East, and with its founding a door of hope has been opened that had been shut in the faces of the innocent little ones on whom nature bears down hard for no sin of their own committing, denying them the well-being of a natural life like other people's, and leaving them a heap of misery, a burden on their families and on society..

The merit of the Lebanese Child Welfare Union:

In 1950 the Union delegated the Reverend Father Cortbawi to represent it at the Zurich congress, which dealt with how to help physically handicapped children so as to make them working elements in life.

Father Cortbawi returned and laid before the Union the theoretical conclusions he had gathered from the congress, and agreement was reached between him and the president, Dr. Jamal Karam Harfouche, to work together to create this center in Lebanon.

The Father Cortbawi Foundation:

The necessities of the project were classified — building, trained specialist personnel, medical treatment, services, etc. ... and the lion's share of them fell to Father Cortbawi, for without his foundation and his energy the realization of the project would not have been possible. It was he who provided the building — a special wing, completely equipped — and it is he who now provides for the center's expenses.

Father Cortbawi's talk about this center is talk brimming with faith and resolve. He appreciates and knows the weight of the responsibility on his shoulders, and he discharges it in the best possible way!

The World Health Organization:

It is among the contributors to the founding of the project. It furnished the center with a specialist physician, Dr. Kraft, the specialist in orthopedic surgery, along with two other experts: one for making artificial appliances, such as hands and legs, and a lady to give physiotherapy — that is, the special exercises for straightening the muscles and helping them recover their natural function.

These trained specialists are part of the center's technical wealth; without them no work can be done. The agreement with the World Health Organization was that they should remain two years, during which they would train Lebanese persons to carry on this work, after receipt of the technical equipment sent to the center by UNICEF, the international organization of the children's relief fund. But the equipment was late in arriving, and the health organization withdrew Dr. Kraft for economic reasons — which very nearly shook the whole undertaking, had not Father Cortbawi met the situation: he canceled the agreement with the health organization and engaged Dr. Kraft himself, after satisfying himself of his worth, at the equivalent of 3,500 lira a month, and secured the running of the work as well as could be wished.

We mention here that the administration of the center is entrusted to two Lebanese nuns of the Sisters of the Sacred Hearts, both holders of the higher nursing diploma, who specialized for two successive years in Europe with a view to directing this center technically and administratively.

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As for medical care, the center has benefited from an exchange of benefits and services between itself and the French and American faculties of medicine: these two faculties treat the patients who require surgical operations and hospitalization, in return for the training of their students at the center.

The center's administration has also established a branch for training Lebanese nurses in the care of these physically handicapped little ones — there are theoretical and practical courses in both English and French. Miss Johnson teaches the nurses in English — they are graduates of the school of nursing at the American University — and Sister Marie Leyden gives the courses in French to the nurses graduated from the French-language school of nursing; all under the supervision of the great physician Dr. Kraft, who will remain at the center for three successive years, and under the direction of Sister Marie-Jeanne, directress of the center. And to Dr. Jamal Karam Harfouche belongs great credit for the organization of these courses, given her wide experience both in medicine and in the needs of Lebanon. As for Father Cortbawi, he provides for all the necessary expenses and oversees the whole of the work with his counsel and his management.

There are now 44 children in the center, and in the coming months their number will reach 61. The monthly expenses now amount to 18 thousand Lebanese lira, of which only 3,200 comes in — for nothing worth mentioning is charged for the poor children. And applications pour into the center from all the Arab countries; among the crippled children today are Jordanians, Syrians, and Saudis...

Father Cortbawi explains that the costs of the center have so far reached 650 thousand lira — of which 61 thousand came from the emigrants through the hands of Mrs. Najla al-Saad, widow of the late Habib Pasha al-Saad, and the equivalent of 15 thousand dollars from UNICEF — together with some assistance through the Lebanese Child Welfare Union, collected by the energy of Mrs. Sara Shahla, amounting to 18 thousand lira, of which 8 thousand has reached the center, while the remaining ten is still in the fund and will be spent in due course.

And the government? There is no denying, says Father Cortbawi, that the government opened the door for the center to cooperate with the international institutions; but up to now we have received no financial assistance, and our hope is that the government will look with a kindly eye upon this vital project and allot it some share of the appropriations, as it does to others!

The Editors: We add our voice to Father Cortbawi's, and we call upon the government to allocate a respectable annual sum as its contribution to this great humanitarian project, and in appreciation of a tremendous effort that is very nearly a 'one-man' effort — in a civilized democratic country..