AMMAN – On Sunday, December 10, Queen Rania of Jordan visited the staff and families of children treated at the center of Our Lady of Peace in Jordan. On the occasion of this support visit, she thanked the center for its “noble mission”.

The visit is part of the Queen’s charitable commitment to youth and education, as well as her fight for tolerance in Jordanian society.

The Queen was welcomed at the Center of Our Lady of Peace by the Latin Patriarchal Vicar for Jordan, Bishop William Shomali, as well as by Patriarch Emeritus Bishop Fouad Twal, Fr. Shawki Baterian, Director of the Center, and the director of the Center’s committees, Sahem Madanat.

The main welcoming speech was made by Fr. Shawki Baterian, who introduced the Queen to the activities of the Center, its objectives and the staff who work there on a daily basis.

Bishop Shomali, for his part, thanked Queen Rania for the royal visit, which was received by the nursing teams of the Center as a recognition of the work done to serve families, and children with disabilities. He also recalled that the Center of Our Lady of Peace is at the service of all Jordanians suffering from mental or physical disabilities, autism, dyslexia or difficulties in speech pronunciation. The Center also has a prosthetic and orthotic unit for people who have lost a limb in an accident or by being victims of the war, including that of Syria. It also helps Iraqi refugees of the Nineveh plains, working in partnership with Caritas Jordan. The Center offers all these services free of charge, supported by the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem.

The Queen then asked some questions about the teams’ functions and branches of the Center of Our Lady of Peace in the cities of Mafraq, Aqaba, Fuheis, Zarqa and Anjara, and pointing out that the Aqaba branch remained to this day the only institution offering such a complete range of services in the south of the country.

The Queen then participated in several workshops with the children and some mothers who were present. A choir of children composed of students from the School of Sisters of the Rosary, a Christian school in Jordan, sang during this visit. The morning ended with a photo shoot with the children and staff of the Center. After her visit, on her website, the Queen publicly thanked the Center for “the nobility of its work”.

Remy Brun and Claire Guigou

If you wish to support the work of the Center of Our Lady of Peace for the families of children with the most modest handicaps, you can visit the center’s website: http://ourladyofpeacecenter.org/web/get-involved/make-a-gift