Bringing hope of New Kalabsha and Garf Hussien: An HCI specialty

Around the West of Lake Nasser in Aswan, the settlements of New Kalabsha and Garf Hussien felt a breeze of fresh air, arriving when HCI-funded medical care mobile units paid them a visit, and offered medical and health care services covering skin diseases, dental medicine, intestinal diseases, gynecology and much more.


The residents of these settlements live in poor health conditions, and they rarely have access to proper medical care, and the only permanent service they benefit from is one health unit with one paramedic, offering basic medications that one can not help but noticing its modesty, in comparison to the needs of the these villages.


With the help of Egypt-based Center for Development Services (CDS), the Directorate of Health Population in Aswan and the High Dam Authority, the medical care mobile units offered help for almost 883 individual including 543 women and 151 child living in extreme poverty and at the risk of severe health problems.


The staff working in these mobile clinics, helped as much people as they can for two days. Doctors, nurses and social workers taking part in this operation, understood the importance of having this immediate intervention, and highly recommended the importance of doing more rounds in the very near future.


The medical care mobile units left the villages with a sense of content, but also realizing the medical and social risk factors that exist in New Kalabsha and Garf Hussien villages. The mission of Human Concern International is to provide care and help individuals in need. The medical care mobile units' experience led HCI to strengthen its responsibility and commitment towards the people of the west of Lake of Nasser, in working together with them to improve the quality of their lives.

Khojali Khalwa: History, commitment, opportunities and hope

Founded in 1734 in the West of the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, the Khojali Khalwa/Mosque is home now to over 300 students.


The majority of the students come from low-income families from the Western part of Sudan, particularly from the Darfur area. They come at 6 years of age to learn Arabic, Tafsir, Shari'ah, Hadith, Mantiq, and history, and eventually to become Hafiz. At Khojali Khalwa, they also learn vocational skills as carpenters, electricians, and technicians. More recently, the Khojali Khalwa opened a computer lab composed of 6 computers connected to the internet.


"The only way out of the misery is education, and education helps you to believe in God, and eventually helps you believe in people and their abilities to improve themselves", Al-Khalifa Moustafa Ahmad, the Khalwa supervisor and descendant of the founder, commented while welcoming us to his humble office at the Khalwa.


"We don't have income, but we survive on occasional assistance and in-kind support from fellow citizens as well as from organizations such as yours", Al-Khalifa Moustafa added while he toured us around the Khalwa, showed us the newly opened mosque and the expanded health center associated with the Khalwa.



My colleagues and I visited the crowded dormitories and met and chatted with the students, which many of them were busy washing their clothes and their new uniforms provided by HCI.


Earlier this summer, with a generous donation from a long-term donor, HCI provided the Khalwa and the students with one-year supply of dates, "Durra Dabar" food, washing soap, bath soap, and uniforms for all the students. Monthly prizes for one year for becoming a Hafiz were also provided by HCI.





We concluded our visit to the Khalwa by passing by the untenable kitchen which lack basic amenities where the slaughtered sheep was prepared for the dinner. HCI has provided the Khalwa with sheep, averaging two sheep per month for one year.