The collaboration between Qatar Foundation (QF) and UK-based humanitarian charity Save the Children has benefitted a large number of refugees in Cox’s Bazaar in Bangladesh.

“To date, we’ve reached 700,000 over the 900,000 refugees in Cox’s Bazaar with support from different organisations and one of them is QF,” Save the Children’s mental health and psychosocial support technical advisor Aladin Borja told the Gulf Times.

He was speaking on the sidelines of the ‘Artistic Dimensions to a Healthier World’ exhibition recently, organised by World Innovation Summit for Health (WISH), at the Doha Fire Station, which also featured the artworks created by refugee Rohingya children.

Borja noted that QF has been supporting them in running their health services, where mental health is integrated as one of the core essential components of their Primary Health Care Service delivery.

“With the support of QF, I know that there are still ongoing talks to help upgrade Primary Health facilities so these have been very instrumental in really making the lives of the children in the camps better,” he said.

Borja pointed out that “health still is a very challenging issue” not only with the Rohingya communities but also the host communities in Bangladesh.

“That remains a major issue and the support of QF in really running these Primary Health Care facilities, really very important because without that, we won’t be able to provide critical lives-saving health services for children and their families and also the wider community,” he said.

Save the Children and WISH recently launched the world’s first field manual in Arabic, which will be used as a reference for treating children who suffer from blast injuries.

According to Borja, Save the Children also holds several activities with children, helping them to cope with the difficult living conditions in the camps, and at the same time recover in the traumatic experiences that they’ve witnessed while they were in Myanmar.

“We also work with a lot of child rights organisations because we want to ensure that we make the most significant impact on the lives of children,” he added.

About the exhibition, which will run until October 27, Borja said ‘Artistic Dimensions to a Healthier World’ serves as a platform to showcase their work to a wider audience.

He thanked WISH and QF for affording them the chance to be in Doha saying that “Rohingya children don’t have the freedom of movement, so they cannot get out of the camps.”

“This is an opportunity for them (Rohingya children) to tell the world what they want to say, what is happening to them, and the things that are relevant to them,” Borja said.


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