Grant awarded to The International Network for Aid, Relief and Assistance (INARA)

The Foundation is pleased to  award a grant to INARA. INARA’s mission is to provide life-altering and life-saving medical care for children from conflict areas who have catastrophic injuries and are unable to access treatment due to war. INARA steps in to fill the gaps in access to medical treatment when it is not provided by governments or other humanitarian organizations.

INARA is focusing on children aged less than one year old to eighteen years old that were injured during conflict or while living as a refugee. In addition, a second project was started in early 2017 targeting children suffering from clubfoot. INARA’s medical provision improves physical mobility by reversing disabilities caused by war or while living as a refugee, as well as preventing or reversing disabilities caused by a lack of access to medical treatment. This addresses both the child’s physical ability to accomplish activities such as attending school, as well as their mental health by boosting confidence and self-esteem. As a result, their longerterm impact is to improve the quality of life for both INARA’s beneficiaries and their families. This in turn will build strong and healthy individuals and families who are more resilient in the face of conflict. The proposed program is addressing the existing gap of children with life-altering disabilities in need of specialized treatment and its limited provision. The types of injuries children can suffer in war or while living as a refugee are diverse and there is no one fits-all approach to address their specific needs. Therefore, a very individualistic approach is needed to ensure each child gets the appropriate and best possible treatment. To take on those cases is very time- and cost-intense, hence requests long-term commitment. Public primary health care centers cannot cater for those children, as in most cases, one or even a series of surgeries is needed. The government and the private sector provide the healthcare system in Lebanon. The government only covers Lebanese nationals and therefore, refugees can only benefit from the privatized healthcare system, whose services are mostly not affordable for refugees.

The goal of INARA’s work is to reach as many children as possible affected by conflict, having life altering or life-threatening injuries or disabilities and requiring medical treatment. Aiming to help the children overcome the barriers of lifelong consequences of their disabilities, and give them back the same opportunities as all other children and through this building strong and healthy individuals and families who are more resilient in the face of conflict. This grant will help provide INARA the security to sustain and expand its operations until the end of the year without constraints related to program support expenditures.