Peace be upon you. May you have a happy, safe and secure new year.
Today, I’m pleased to celebrate with you on the anniversary of our Foundation on January 8, 2011.
In this day, we, the proud staff of this Foundation, light the candle of its fourteenth anniversary as a source of giving, inspiration, self-esteem, and a sense of belonging to it, and through it we offer Yemen - our dear homeland - everything we can do to serve it. Memories take me back to about a decade and a half ago when its good seed was planted on this land and I nurtured it with all my effort, care, and dedication until it became a large, fruitful tree with abundant shade that shelters everyone who is driven by need to rest from the hardships and sufferings of life, and whose blessings and compassion are enjoyed by everyone who has been deprived by harsh circumstances and injustice from living in safety, stability, and inner peace. Today, this Foundation, with its branches and its distinguished, dedicated, and capable staff, extends a helping hand to every child, man, and woman, and every young man and elderly person in all parts of Yemen who seeks its help to get rid of the deep psychological scars, both visible and invisible, that have afflicted them due to the harshness of life and the horror of suffering, misery, and bitter misery. The Foundation did not hesitate to provide free psychological consultations and treatment to hundreds of thousands of patients during the past decade and a half.
I would like to highlight here on some of the Foundation's achievements in numbers that some of you may not know:
In the last ten years, the Foundation has achieved numbers that may be considered astronomical if we compare them to the size of the challenges and exceptional and critical circumstances that the country is going through.
- The total number of beneficiaries of the Foundation's services reached 382,000 Yemeni citizens, 60% of whom are women and children.
- The number of beneficiaries of the psychological and family counseling help-line reached 295,000 thousand cases from all governorates of the Republic.
- The Foundation effectively provided free psychotropic medications to 43,000 beneficiaries.
- We provided psychological sessions to approximately 21,000 cases of women and men and treated approximately 4,000 children.
- The inpatient unit of the Foundation treated 289 patients during 2018/2021, and we treated 220 patients through referral to various hospitals at the expense of the Foundation’s projects.
- We also contributed to the economic empowerment of 1,260 women from the Foundation’s cases by training them in various craft and economic skills.
- The number of case files in the Foundation reached 62,000 files, which means that 62,000 cases with their families and relatives visited the Foundation, opened a file, learned about its departments, benefited from its services, and may still benefit from them. If we consider that each person of these 62,000 cases affects an average of 10 or 15 people in their surroundings, then I will leave you to calculate the impact of this number on others around them, whether in psychological stability and changing their lives for the better, or in spreading the good reputation of the field of mental health and overcoming the stigma of psychotherapy and changing people's attitudes towards the field. In addition, the counseling help-line played a major role in all that we mentioned for 295,000 cases. All of that is in addition to the role of visual, audio and written awareness programs from which hundreds of thousands have benefited.
This unique Foundation, in addition to being a service center, is an educational and training facility that has MHPSS specialists. Our Foundation trains a number of psychiatrists annually in Dhamar, Aden, Lahj and Abyan, which has reached 20 psychiatrists. If we add to this number those we train continuously in our centers in Sana'a and Aden, who have worked or are still working with us, the number becomes 42 professionals. The Foundation also works on qualifying psychotherapists through its annual program, for which we have reached 100 qualified therapists. If we add to them those we train continuously and who have worked or are working with us, the total becomes 160 psychotherapists.
(That being said, we had the honor of being a pioneer in the field of MHPSS)
We should be proud of our purely humanitarian achievements and the free services that we provide at the highest level. I liked an expression I heard describing our Foundation from a government official who visited us. He said, “I was amazed by what I saw. You provide a wonderful and high-end service in a 5-star center for poor people.”
Dears, the Foundation will continue with you and through you to fulfill its noble duty towards our countrymen, no matter the challenges and difficulties. It is a national, moral and religious commitment from all of us that we will never deviate from, and we will continue to work and struggle to achieve the message and goals of this Foundation with all our energy, effort and experience that we have acquired over the years. In conclusion, I cannot but extend my deep thanks and gratitude to everyone who sincerely and faithfully believed in the role and giving of this Foundation and to all the local, regional and international partners who supported the Foundation and provided funding for its unique projects and free services, and to its workers from doctors, psychologists, administrators, technicians and male and female assistants.
I take this opportunity to tell you that you are the spirit of this Foundation, its beating heart and its pillars that stand tall with them. With your dedication and sincere efforts, you light the flame of hope and happiness in every Yemeni home whose light has been extinguished by the darkness of psychological disorders.
I do not forget here the role of the trainees in the FCDF’s program for psychological treatment, the fourth batch, a number of whom work voluntarily in most of the Foundation’s departments with all their effort and diligence. Every day they prove their loyalty and great belonging to this Foundation and they also participate effectively in its celebration.
Thank you to everyone who prepared for, arranged, organized, presented, participated, photographed and attended this celebration.
I thank you all and congratulate you one by one on this joyful day by lighting the fourteenth candle of the anniversary of FCDF.
And peace be upon you