Abu Dhabi, Aug 24 (IANS/WAM) The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has launched a campaign to provide free health-care facilities to at least one million poor children in several countries including India and Pakistan.

One million poor ill children will be given a new lease of life under the mission launched in Abu Dhabi by Sheikh Hamdan bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Ruler’s Representative in the Western Region and President of the UAE Red Crescent Authority (RCA).

Khadem Al Darie, team leader of the Emirates Global Humanitarian Mobile Hospital (Elaj), said: ‘The mission is to promote the culture of giving and social volunteering through activation of local and international programmes with the aim of easing suffering of poor patients’.

He said Elaj will send its convoys to different parts of the world to conduct health camps under the theme ‘Right to Life … Easing Suffering of Poor Children’.

Adel Al Shameri, CEO of the Zayed Giving Initiative and Executive Director of Elaj, said, ‘The campaign will launch prevention and awareness programme in remote towns and villages of host countries, develop professional skills of health staff, forge a true non-for profit partnership between government and non-government organistions and conduct humanitarian health studies’.

In the first phase, the campaign would cover India, Pakistan, Egypt, Bosnia, Tanzania, Zanzibar and Lebanon, he added.

–IANS/WAM

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