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
For exercising the muscles of the arms in movement
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 hot bath and skilled massage for the crippled children