AYOUNKON: enhancing the access to ophthalmologic services in the Bekaa Valley

Duration: 12 months
Location: Valle della Bekaa / Libano
Donor: UNOCHA – LHF / Lebanon Humanitarian Fund
Description: The project, build on the results reached with the pilot initiative “Ayounkon: urgent visual health for Syrian refugees in the Bekaa Valley”, aims to ameliorate and facilitate the access to ophthalmologic services for Syrian refugees and vulnerable Lebanese in the Bekaa Valley. ARCS, in partnership with the staff of the Primary Healthcare Centers of Amel International a Lebanese NGO specialized in the health sector, will offer along the 12 months project, 1200 free eye screening in three particularly remote and vulnerable centers in the Bekaa Valley: Masgharah, Kamed el Loz ed Arsal. The eye screenings will be followed by a distribution of 600 corrective spectacles. Moreover, the project will subsidize 125 eye surgeries (cataracts, vitrectomies, strabismus correction and cornea transplant), thanks to the partnership with the Beirut Eye & ENT hospital with which ARCS collaborate with success since one year, identifying and transporting the most vulnerable patients (children and elderly) from the Bekaa Valley to Beirut.