In October 2020, Amel Association International (Amel) launched a center in Ain El Remmaneh that provides primary health care services. As a result of the deteriorating socio-economic situation and the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the new medical center sets itself as a goal to respond to the needs of the underprivileged.
This medical unit comes to reinforce the work of the Ain El Remmaneh socio-developmental center that has been active since 2007 providing a range of programs aiming at empowering women and children from fragile households. These programs offer courses that seek to empower participants and allow them to develop their manual, linguistic, and social skills to engage in the labor market. These programs many of which are tailored to the needs of women help to acquire a higher degree of socio-economic freedom and social capital. An educational program has also been set up to provide pedagogical and psycho-social support to children in addition to social initiatives and awareness sessions lead by the center.
The medical center will provide consultations, medicines, and awareness sessions in response to the needs of the inhabitants of Ain El Remmaneh and its surrounding. These needs have been assessed through informed research that has established two areas in which to operate: First, assisting those who have been affected by the Beirut Blast. Second, helping curve the rates of infections and stunting the spread of the coronavirus.
Generating awareness, and spreading a culture of prevention against the virus, and fighting against false sanitary information will be one of the central tasks the center will be focusing on. Amel’s philosophy of care is based on the understanding that our actions can affect public policy by leading by example. Doing this Amel stands true to its values by trying to ensure the right to medical care to everyone by having the lowest fees possible.
This represents the philosophy of Amel, which aims to influence the sanitary policies to build a system based on prevention, the right to medical care, and reduced fees of treatments and medicines in Lebanon.
The right to medical care is one of Amels main commitments in its humanitarian endeavor ever since it was founded.
Many solutions have been developed and experimented on over the last decades enabling Amel to operate sanitary programs, including the launch of mobile clinics, the creation of primary health care centers, and the development in the most marginalized zones which have been proven to until today to make sure of supply Lebanese residents with access to health care.
The objective of the socio-medical center of Ain El Remmaneh, like all Amel centers, is to offer concrete solutions to serve popular and marginalized communities regardless of their political, religious, sectarian regional affiliations. Amel, as a secular NGO, will continue, through its 26 centers, its 9 mobile clinics, its two educational units, its special health care unit for children of the streets, and its 900 volunteers and employees, to intensify the efforts, despite the on-going challenges, to bring out the best support possible. It is with this spirit that Amel is preparing to launch the social and medical center in Karm El Zeitoun, Achrafiyeh, a popular neighborhood that is composed of a rich wealth of ethnic backgrounds.
