By Ferry Biedermann

and Heba Saleh

THE AL NOOR CHARITABLE FOUNDATION is linked to the Magrabi hospitals that are known throughout the Arab world for providing free eyecare to the poor.

The hospital group, which began in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, in 1955, are private for-profit facilities, mostly for ophthalmology but now also provide other services, such as dentistry. The hospitals, numbering 25 and located in Egypt and throughout the Arab peninsula, co-operate with the Al Noor foundation of Akef Maghraby, an Egyptian doctor and businessman who took over an eyecare business from his father. Al Noor, founded in 1999, tackles a range of healthcare and other issues but maintains the family’s traditional focus on eye health. One programme has caravans of staff criss-crossing rural areas in Egypt and Yemen to identify cataract patients who are then referred to Magrabi eye hospitals. The Sawiris foundation takes its name from the owners of the Egypt-based Orascom business empire, which operates in the telecoms and construction sectors of the Middle East and beyond. Onsi Sawiris, founder of Orascom, made the Forbes 500 list of the world’s richest people in 2001 with a fortune at the time of more than $1bn. He established the foundation in the same year. It is concerned primarily with social development and addresses this mainly through employment programmes that identify job opportunities and then train people from poorer parts of society to fill them.

It also encourages entrepreneurship through programmes and grants, including a microcredit scheme. The foundation offers scholarships abroad, in addition to funding basic education initiatives in Egypt. It is also setting up a nursing school to address a severe shortage of nurses in the Egyptian health system.

The Shomanfoundation stems from the Shoman family fortune, which in turn rests on theArab Bank, based in Jordan. The bank began life in 1930s Jerusalem. The Shomans relocated to Amman several years after the foundation of Israel in 1948, but were admired for paying out all deposits in the branches that were lost in Haifa and Jaffa. The foundation was established by Arab Bank in 1978 in the name of Abdul Hameed Shoman, the son of the founder. Its main activities focus on science and culture. It is particularly known for establishing the Darat al-Funun cultural centre in Amman, which has since split from the main foundation. Among other activities, the foundation, also has a public library and cultural centre, awards several prizes and grants, and organises regular cultural and scientific events. The Hariri foundation, a charity founded in 1979 by Rafiq Hariri, the assassinated former Lebanese prime minister, has survived the death of its billionaire benefactor. In total, Hariri gave $1.2bn to the foundation between 1979 and 2005. It is still supported by his widow, Nazek Hariri, and his son Saad, who has just become Lebanon’s prime minister. The foundation has three main branches: education, health and social services. Each is led separately and enjoys an almost independent existence.

Nowadays the health section, started by Dr Noureddine El-Kouche in 1999 and still led by him, takes up a sizeable chunk of the foundation’s cash. The clinics offer low-cost medical treatment and diagnostics to all-comers in 37 locations around Lebanon.

The educational section, headed by Mustapha al-Zaatari, supported Lebanese students at foreign universities during the civil war years when domestic education was disrupted. This practice ended in 1995, but with the restoration of Lebanese universities, it has since supported students at home. It may not have been his intention but the largesse of Hariri, a multibillionaire who made his fortune mostly in construction in Saudi Arabia, certainly did him no harm as a politician. “It helped his image but it was not overtly political. Many of the students who he helped come from opposite camps of the political spectrum,” says political analyst Oussama Safa.

The third branch of the foundation is involved in charity for the very poor. It gives money to families in need and also provides food packages during Ramadan. This branch has disbursed money 120,000 times this year - in some cases, such as for medical treatments, more than once to the same families. And last Ramadan, the foundation distributed 250,000 meal packages at a cost of $38 a package.