Ayounkon project started as a pilot project and is now in its third phase. The project aims to ameliorate and facilitate the access to ophthalmologic services for Syrian refugees and vulnerable Lebanese in the Bekaa Valley.

Starting 2017, the volunteer ophthalmologists’ team (Dr. Youssef Abdelmassih and Dr. Sylvain el-Khoury) provided visual health services in the Bekaa Valley in Lebanon, which is historically an under-developed area, where health services and support are not always accessible to the vulnerable population of Lebanese and refugees.

More than 5000 free eye screenings were done in three particularly remote and vulnerable centers in the Bekaa Valley: Masgharah, Kamed el Loz and Arsal. The eye screenings were followed by a distribution of 600 corrective spectacles.

Moreover, the project subsidized more than 160 eye surgeries (cataracts, vitrectomies, strabismus, and cornea transplantation), thanks to the partnership with the Beirut Eye & ENT Hospital, with which ARCS, GENEAH, and Amel Association collaborated with success, identifying and transporting the most vulnerable patients from the Bekaa Valley to Beirut.