Press release on the Fondation Pierre Fabre’s actions in Lebanon
08/10/2024
Already very active in Lebanon, the Fondation Pierre Fabre is stepping up its program of actions to help communities against a backdrop of war.
The Fondation Pierre Fabre has been very active in Lebanon for over 20 years, partly through a first-rate partnership with the Order of Malta in Lebanon, whose network of 11 primary healthcare centers and 8 mobile medical units now account for 20% of subsidized primary healthcare consultations at national level.
Since October 2023, the conflict between Hezbollah and Israel has escalated, with air strikes across southern Lebanon, the Beqaa Valley and Beirut’s southern suburbs, along with a ground offensive in the south of the country. According to the Lebanese disaster management authorities, over 2,000 people have been killed in Lebanon since October 2023, and over half of those deaths have occurred since September 23, 2024, when Israel launched an intense air campaign. The Lebanese government estimates that around 1.2 million people have been forced to flee the south of the country in search of safety in the Chouf region, Western Beqaa, Beirut and northern Lebanon.
Faced with the extreme poverty of those displaced persons, and the sheer scale of need, the Fondation Pierre Fabre decided to send additional emergency funding to pay for mobile water treatment units for the makeshift camps for displaced families (mostly set up in schools), along with hygiene kits and diapers, food packages and medicines. The mobile medical units funded by the Foundation in Kefraya and the Chouf region will also provide healthcare and medicines to people housed in the schools located within their catchment area.
This support is in addition to all the health programs already developed by the Foundation in Lebanon, such as:
- A primary healthcare program called SOHA (“Health” in Arabic), up and running since 2019, which has enabled the Order of Malta in Lebanon to structure its organization and step up its medical activities. The second phase of the program began in 2024 and focuses on the prevention and treatment of chronic diseases, largely through school-based youth programs.
- A women’s and children’s health project, in partnership with the Order of Malta and the Lebanese non-profit organization ASSAMEH Birth & Beyond, that includes support for the state-run Quarantine Hospital, which was rebuilt after the explosion at the Port of Beirut, to get the pediatric and maternity departments back on their feet.
- Ongoing funding of two mobile medical units, which provide free healthcare to refugee communities in makeshift camps in the Western Beqaa, as well as the poverty-stricken host community living in isolated villages in the Chouf region. Those mobile medical units are working full-time to cope with the current situation.