Because the right to health is a basic human right. The World Health Organization’s Constitution states that “everyone has the right to enjoy the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health and ratified international human rights standards and conventions exist to protect the rights of refugees and migrants including their right to health”. Providing timely access to quality health services to refugees and migrants is the best way to save lives and cut health care costs, as well as protect the health of the native citizens. Migrants and refugees are likely to be healthy, but they can be at risk of getting sick in transition or when they reach their new host country. Most of the illnesses a refugee encounters can stem from poor living conditions such as camps that provide very little shelter and sanitation. They are at risk for illness because of the change in their lifestyle due to inadequate food, lack of clean water, overcrowding and the increase in toxic stress and anxiety due to the violence and torture suffered both in their countries of origin and during their journey seeking safety.

GPH has worked with Kitrinos, a UK based NGO that operates a small clinic at the entrance of the camp that provides medical care to refugees. In our missions to Moria health clinic we were able to provide nursing and ancillary clinical support, translators, health education, medication and basic medical equipment to the clinic. Over the past year, GPH has noticed the living conditions at the Moria refugee camp have deteriorated, mainly due to overcrowding and lack of hygiene which is contributing to an ongoing health crisis. On our last visit to Moria in February 2019 the same health issues, scabies and lice appeared in patients at the clinic time and time again. These health conditions stem from bad sanitation and poor living conditions in the camp. Having seen many patients with lice, scabies and deteriorating mental health within the residents, GPH created a series of 4 instructional comic books. These books were designed to teach refugee children 5 years and older about the health hazards of living in an overcrowded refugee camp, ways to prevent, detect and treat these conditions. Each Camp Care Comic book comes with a utility kit which contains the essentials to carry out the instructional lesson. It is not feasible to  ask someone to wash his hands with soap and water when there are no resources to do so. The four main topics covered in the comic books are: Handwashing, lice and scabies prevention along with mindful initiatives to relieve stress and anxiety a child may have from the stresses of fleeing their home and living in a crowded refugee camp. The Camp Care Comics can be distributed to newly admitted refugee families as a prevention measure and to the children currently living in refugee camps in an informal educational classroom setting. The comic book can also be used as a patient education tool in a small clinic setting. The booklets are being translated in Arabic, French Farci, Pashtu, and Spanish but can be easily translated in other languages depending on the population.

As we live through the COVID-19 day by day, with social distancing and quarantine as a way of slowing down the virus; let us not forget the poor and displaced no matter where they live. Amid the global pandemic, Zaher Sahloul, president and co-founder of the humanitarian charity MedGlobal, urged authorities not to forget the most vulnerable people. He said, “While the global health community and countries are busy with curbing the spread of the covid-19, let us not forget the refugees and the displaced. It is our humanitarian duty, and it is also the right thing to do to prevent catastrophic morbidity and mortality in a population that is unable to deal with the pandemic effectively.” Go Project Hope continues to develop and implement health education and mindful initiatives that serve children and families during the pandemic. We are working with the medical team at Moria to understand the needs of the camp during this difficult time. A donation to GPH will allow us to provide refugee families with the basic items needed to give them a chance to defend themselves from illnesses.