The First Lady of Lebanon with some of the officials at the festival
On the eleventh of April the Committee for Aid to the Blind held a festival in West Hall at the American University, under the patronage of the First Lady of Lebanon, Mrs. Zalfa Chamoun. It was a successful festival, and it brought the committee a goodly sum of money to help it carry on its service to the blind in Lebanon.
The first work undertaken by the committee — which includes a select group of our ladies and our men — was the founding of a center for the blind near the Patriarchal School in Beirut. The aim of this social center is to care for the blind, to attend to their circumstances and to the condition of their families, and to open ways of work for those of them who are able.
The center is made up of three sections, namely:
First: the section of studies, prevention, and guidance... Its task is to carry out statistical studies of the conditions of the blind, as individuals and as families; to deal with problems of income, housing, economy, health, and culture; to provide means of recreation and of filling leisure hours; to organize general education; and to see to the schooling of the children of the blind...
Second: the section of medical and psychological treatment: It provides free medical treatment and psychological examinations. It extends its help in securing medicine and, when necessary, in surgical operations and hospital care, and other medical assistance in the fields of X-rays, laboratory analyses, and dentistry.
Third — the section of vocational training and workshops: This is carried out through programs of vocational guidance for the blind, in the light of their inclinations and their physical and mental capacities. It secures work for them in the workshops it sets up, or in private and public places of work — above all in weaving, printing, and wickerwork — and through the founding of a consumers' cooperative to lighten the burdens of living for the blind.
The committee, in cooperation with the Ministry of Social Affairs and the Ministry of the Interior, will proceed to a general census covering the whole of Lebanon, so as to learn through this census the number of the blind, the cause of their infirmities and the nature of these infirmities, and the work they do or can do well... The committee will begin its statistical work at the beginning of May of this year.
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At the festival I made the rounds with Mr. Maarouf Sweid, delegate of the Ministry of Social Affairs on the Committee for Aid to the Blind, who showed me the handiwork of the institutions of the blind in Lebanon, and the various activities of the committee in collecting the largest possible sum of money.
The wife of His Excellency the President opened the sale by purchasing an oil painting; then