“It is my dream to have zero people in need, that is what drives me.” A powerful statement from Najla, a former employee of the Ministry of Housing and Utilities in 2017. Najla wanted a career change and to focus on providing humanitarian services to the Libyan population.
Since 2017, Najla has been the Director of Administrative Affairs at Al Rawnaq, a Civil Society Organization (CSO) based in Benghazi. Al Rawnaq has more than 12 years of experience in delivering awareness-raising campaigns on several topics including COVID-19, breast cancer, gender-based violence and women rights.
Recently, Najla was appointed as Community Leader to make sure the communities in Bengazi receive lifesaving information about access to health and medical services that are available at the Al Kwifia Clinic, one of the key health facilities targeted by the EU-funded programme “Baladiyati”. These include services for rehabilitation, equipment, supplies, and key trainings to service providers and local stakeholders for efficient healthcare provisions.
Under the coordination of the Italian Agency for Development Cooperation (AICS), Najla and her team work together with the International NGO ACTED on designing and organising campaigns to increase awareness on essential services that benefit all populations in the area. “As Libyans, we do not normally expect the services we need to be available in most health facilities. So, it is really important to invest in awareness campaigns, because this is the only way to get the attention of the communities; it is mostly the word of mouth that gets the word around,” said Najla.
Thanks to the Baladiyati programme, Najla’s hope is to reduce risks for the local communities: “Making it possible for the communities to rely on the facilities within their areas, we can prevent unsafe travelling for medical emergencies and minimize overloads on other facilities”. Najla is very positive about this project and has not missed any training, event or meeting related to it: “I am very excited to work and be involved in this project. The main challenge for local CSOs is to get financial support to carry out our activities, so working for the Baladiyati programme is a great opportunity to do high-level work in line with our goals and what we strive to achieve in Libya.”
This story was written by AICS based on content collected on ground by ACTED
Photo credit: ACTED
