How the Beirut blast led a Bahraini doctor to launch a Lebanon mental health lifeline

How the Beirut blast led a Bahraini doctor to launch a Lebanon mental health lifeline

A Bahraini psychologist shared how the Beirut blast in 2020 led her to co-found a vital mental health support lifeline in Lebanon to provide help to those suffering from trauma, anxiety and depression.

Luma Bashmi was born in Bahrain but studied in the American University of Beirut before continuing her studies in London and the US and moving back to the Gulf to continue her work in psychology.

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Fast forward to August 4, 2020, Bashmi watched, along with the world, the blast that destroyed neighborhoods and devastated Lebanon; a country already witnessing major economic and social-political turmoil.

The blast killed more than 215 people, injured thousands and destroyed swathes of the Lebanese capital.

“The first thing I did was call one my friends in Lebanon and I asked her, ‘what can I do to help you?” Bashmi told Al Arabiya English. “She said, ‘You are in mental health so you know, better than me, what can you do?’… The first thing that I thought of was how I could give mental health psychosocial support.”

Bashmi turned to her network and connected with Dr. Summer Fakro, a clinical psychologist at The Lighthouse