Dumou', 16, is engaged to a distant cousin of hers. Fully veiled, she welcomes us with a shy smile into the small, decrepit apartment she shares with her father, his two wives, and their ten children. With all the mannerisms of a young teenager, she giggles when a sensitive subject is broached and glows when she realizes she is being addressed as an adult, before carefully volunteering her opinion on anything from women's health and pregnancy to domestic violence and early marriage.
Manal, in her 30s, has already taken her youngest daughter, born with a congenital retinopathy, to see several of the leading ophthalmologists in the region. Her son, who walks into the large and newly renovated family home sporting his newest jeans, is getting ready to go to college, which will give Manal more time to dedicate to the women's organization she helped found. Wearing sports gear, she effusively discusses the problems of access to healthcare as she describes the many medical conditions--high blood pressure, diabetes, heart failure--that her acquaintances suffer from, before reminding us that she has completed First Aid training and has been to visit many health professionals in different parts of the country. As we get ready to leave, she too, as Dumou' had done earlier, rushes to offer us food and drinks--although instead of Pepsi and chocolate wafers, she brings us tea and coffee in Chinaware along with home baked goods made with coconut.
These two women are Bedouins living in Lebanon. Both were selected by the Bedouin leaders as potential candidates to be Community Health Volunteers (CHV), as part of the Bedouin Health Project spearheaded by researchers at AUB's Faculty of Health Sciences in collaboration with the Ford Foundation and Oxford University. Between 50,000 and 75,000 Bedouins live in Lebanon, the majority of whom migrated from the Golan Heights after losing access to pastoral lands following the 1967 Six Day War. Today, most have settled in the fertile Beqa’a Valley. Those who are not Lebanese citizens have to buy private insurance or pay out-of-pocket for any healthcare expenditure they incur. The problem is not access to healthcare per se: Bedouins do seek medical care, particularly when dealing with pregnancy; however, they are overall reluctant to do so as their care is hindered by discriminatory practices on the part of providers and cultural norms that limit the women's comfort level while interacting with physicians. Surveys conducted by AUB additionally suggest that there is also an "overmedicalization" of health services with little or no focus on preventative care.
In an effort to minimize some of these barriers, the Bedouin Health Project is training CHVs to work as facilitators and mediators between the Bedouin women and the primary care centers in the Beqa'a region. Additionally, these women will receive training in children's and women's health in the hopes that they may serve as resources for the local communities when and where more specialized care is not available. The project is also involved in building local providers' cultural competency toward Bedouin attitudes and practices. While fraught with obstacles--most of the women selected by the tribe leaders are barely 18 and most of the providers, already overworked, are not particularly interested in training sessions on cultural awareness, the project has been enthusiastically received by the Bedouins, who see it as a first step toward their becoming more empowered in dictating their own healthcare
Manal, in her 30s, has already taken her youngest daughter, born with a congenital retinopathy, to see several of the leading ophthalmologists in the region. Her son, who walks into the large and newly renovated family home sporting his newest jeans, is getting ready to go to college, which will give Manal more time to dedicate to the women's organization she helped found. Wearing sports gear, she effusively discusses the problems of access to healthcare as she describes the many medical conditions--high blood pressure, diabetes, heart failure--that her acquaintances suffer from, before reminding us that she has completed First Aid training and has been to visit many health professionals in different parts of the country. As we get ready to leave, she too, as Dumou' had done earlier, rushes to offer us food and drinks--although instead of Pepsi and chocolate wafers, she brings us tea and coffee in Chinaware along with home baked goods made with coconut.
These two women are Bedouins living in Lebanon. Both were selected by the Bedouin leaders as potential candidates to be Community Health Volunteers (CHV), as part of the Bedouin Health Project spearheaded by researchers at AUB's Faculty of Health Sciences in collaboration with the Ford Foundation and Oxford University. Between 50,000 and 75,000 Bedouins live in Lebanon, the majority of whom migrated from the Golan Heights after losing access to pastoral lands following the 1967 Six Day War. Today, most have settled in the fertile Beqa’a Valley. Those who are not Lebanese citizens have to buy private insurance or pay out-of-pocket for any healthcare expenditure they incur. The problem is not access to healthcare per se: Bedouins do seek medical care, particularly when dealing with pregnancy; however, they are overall reluctant to do so as their care is hindered by discriminatory practices on the part of providers and cultural norms that limit the women's comfort level while interacting with physicians. Surveys conducted by AUB additionally suggest that there is also an "overmedicalization" of health services with little or no focus on preventative care.
In an effort to minimize some of these barriers, the Bedouin Health Project is training CHVs to work as facilitators and mediators between the Bedouin women and the primary care centers in the Beqa'a region. Additionally, these women will receive training in children's and women's health in the hopes that they may serve as resources for the local communities when and where more specialized care is not available. The project is also involved in building local providers' cultural competency toward Bedouin attitudes and practices. While fraught with obstacles--most of the women selected by the tribe leaders are barely 18 and most of the providers, already overworked, are not particularly interested in training sessions on cultural awareness, the project has been enthusiastically received by the Bedouins, who see it as a first step toward their becoming more empowered in dictating their own healthcare
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