World Compassion Fellowship launched two permanent Medical Life Centers (“LC”) in Beirut, and North Lebanon, in partnership with field ministries, the Harold C Smith Foundation (“HCSF”) and our funding supporters. These are two strategic areas for treating large communities of Syrian and Iraqi war refugees since the Syrian Civil War and the Iraqi conflicts began.

On August 4th, a massive explosion caused extensive damage throughout Beirut with countless homes, schools and churches severely damaged. Two hundred people died, several thousand people were injured and more than 300,000 people were left with damaged homes or completely homeless. It's frankly a miracle that more didn't perish.

Haiti has a rich history and resilient people, but corruption and political turmoil have been ongoing challenges for Haiti's people. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, Haiti had been experiencing a severe political and economic crisis sparked by a scandal centering around a government program called Petrocaribe, where $2 billion dollars which were supposed to go into social programs went missing.

Thanks a generous grant from the Harold C Smith Foundation, WCF was able to partner with 16 local ministries to provide a month's supply of Food and Hygiene Care packages to over 13,000 families, representing almost 80,000 people in 6 countries - Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, Turkey, India and Pakistan.

Lebanon, with an original population of 4 million, has more than 1.5 million Syrian refugees and tens of thousands of Iraqi refugees throughout the country, the most refugees per capita in the world. WCF has been sending mobile medical teams to Lebanon since 2014 to serve the refugees who have fled war.

WCF has been sending Mobile Medical Teams to the Middle East region for many years, but much more since refugees began fleeing Syria around 2013. In 2019, WCF sent Medical Teams to various Middle East countries including Jordan where we served the refugees in Amman and Zarqa.

World Compassion Fellowship's involvement in India began at the very inception of WCF - in 2006. In fact, many of my co-workers on Wall St at that time were of Indian descent, some of whom were the initial supporters of WCF. To this day, I'm grateful for the support that got us started.

Over the years, WCF has provided medical and humanitarian care to Iraqi refugees throughout the region, but last year was the first time we were able to bring a mobile medical team to Northern Iraq itself. We were able to treat 470 patients overall in multiple locations.