Give 2000 Egyptian Families Affordable Health Care

On the World Health Day, we wanted to celebrate the efforts of our project team that has made healthcare accessible to hundreds of Egyptian famillies. Our project team is the cornerstone of this project, their work literally saves lives every single day and today we wanted to tell you the story of just one day's work. A story of how they saved two famillies in just a couple of days, a story that shows their efforts which want to give them credit for!

The story began when the project team received a call from someone seeking help because two of his family members were in a terrible car accident and required immediate surgeries which they could not afford by any means. Karim (our project leader) went direclty to the hospital where they were checked in and knew the exact details of their profiles and medical needs. He found that Mr. Ashraf is a teacher and his wife Ms Gehan is a housewife, from there they took matters into their hands. They called the healthcare coverage scheme that Mr Ashraf is enrolled in and managed to get him an approval to continue his treatment and get the necessary services for free at the same hospital that he was in. As for Ms Gehan who wasn't eligible for healthcare coverage, the team managed to direct her to the state-funded health service and got her the approval needed to get the medical procedure that she needed for free. Through this intervention, this couple was rescued from a burden of over 60,000 EGP that they would have had to borrow in order to get the needed medical services and would have gotten themselves into debts. 

The more interesting part is that the story did not end here, because while monitoring the case of this couple, the hero of our story found a woman sitting on the floor of the same hospital and crying her eyes out. Karim could have focused on the problem that he was already fixing, but he does not leave someone hurting without at least offering to help. He went to her and asked what's wrong, it turned out that she is a woman from Upper Egypt whose 10 years old son Youssef was hit by a car while they were visiting Cairo and the hospital refused to treat him unless they paid 15,000 EGP. The problem here was that the Youssef's healthcare coverage papers belonged to the city where he was born and they did not know how to get approvals or do the papers in Cairo. The team then stayed with the mother and called the father who was back at their hometown, they took the case up with the healthcare insurance office, made sure they facilitated the transfer of his case between the cities and did not rest until the boy accessed his right to free healthcare.

This is the kind of passion that keeps us going, the stories of how this team changes and saves lives every single day is our source of pride.

Happy World Health Day, follow our project and our Facebook page to know how we work on making health services accessible to everyone!

Links:

• Shamseya's Facebook Page, Check it for regular updates!

On the occasion of the International Women's month, we wanted to tell you a little about how Shamseya's project has managed to contribute to the hardworking Egyptian women and girls with their different stories. During the project design, we were keen on being inclusive and empowering, through promoting gender equality in healthcare services' attainment. 

To date, more than 60% of our beneficiaries are women from various categories such as school students, university students, breadwinners and senior citizens, all of whom live in underprivileged communities. These women and girls have one thing in common: they were all struggling to attain their right to accessible, affordable and dignified healthcare services. They could not get enrolled in healthcare coverage schemes, benefit from the coverage schemes that they are already enrolled in or even go to the right place to get the medical services that they are eligible to. 

Imagine a tailoring workshop in one of Egypt's poorest slum areas, where tens of women work to put food on the tables, a job that empowers them both socially and economically. Unfortunately, many of these women were suffering from vision defects that they did not prioritize, because they put their families before themselves and constantly choose to give their time and money to their families instead of attaining the healthcare services that they need and deserve. One of our proudest interventions was working with those amazing breadwinning women and providing them with the guidance needed to navigate healthcare systems and get the needed healthcare services.

We have managed to raise their awareness on available healthcare coverage schemes, help them navigate the bureaucracy and get surgeries, medications and eyeglasses to correct their vision defects. We have done our best to be their ally along the way and reassure them that they are not going through the hardships of life on their own.

Due to your invaluable donations, we have enabled tens of hardworking women to continue working and maintain their primary source of income by solving their health problems. After getting their vision defects corrected, the manager of the tailoring workshop confirmed that the products now have a much better quality. Without your contributions and support, we wouldn't have been able to help these women and as a result their work and economic situation would have been deeply affected.

On the 8th of March 2021, the little x little campaign will start on GlobalGiving, where donations up to 50 USD will be matched by 50%. This is a great chance to increase the impact of your donation, spread the word and contribute to help hardworking Egyptian breadwinners get the healthcare services they need!