Meeting the Bedouin Leaders: Engaging the Community in the Intervention Phase

19/12/2009

Having reached the intervention phase, the project team met with the Bedouin Leaders on December 19th, 2009 to discuss with them the upcoming steps of the project. During the meeting, the team leader, Dr. Faysal El-Kak emphasized the importance of finding a local partner for the study who can take over the lead of the project after it's official termination. After much deliberation, the attendees agreed to form a committee that will undertake the task of following up on this and other potential projects or issues that may arise in the Bedouin community. The committee consists of 18 Bedouin men and leaders from all the tribes in Central Bekaa area. One of the first tasks of this committee will be to chose potential female candidates to be trained as community health volunteers. The main task of these volunteers  would be to dissemination biomedical information on topics relating to child and reproductive health, perform emergency first aid, and link the community to the services offered by the existing health care centers.