FAID reaches deaf refugees in the mountains of Lebanon

Currently, the Father Andeweg Institute for the Deaf (FAID) in Beirut welcomes about 20 deaf Syrian refugee children. This is as much as they can handle, because getting financial support for Syrian students is extremely difficult. Yet, the need is huge, as Lebanon has taken in about 1 million refugees from Syria.

This is the reason why FAID has created a different, innovative approach to this problem. It is called “Outreach Program” and consists of having 2 special education professionals going regularly to the Zahle region in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley, where most refugees are. They will provide hearing aids, speech therapy and education, most importantly working with the parents of the deaf children. A special program has been devised to teach parents how to best support their children.

The program is scheduled to start in September 2018, and it will run in collaboration with Salam, which we at Lebanon Trust visited last year.