Childhood Cancer Center Lebanon provides cancer care for displaced children

Manal Azhari was working as a school administrator when she first heard of Children’s Cancer Center of Lebanon (CCCL) and its partnership with St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital®. “We had a student, a grade 12 student, who got cancer,” she recalled. 

His family had believed that he wouldn’t make it, Azhari said, until he was referred to CCCL for treatment. 

Sixteen years ago, Azhari didn’t know that cancer was curable. “This was the first time I researched to learn more about it,” she said. 

Her student’s referral changed her perspective. 

“This patient is now a doctor. He survived,” Azhari said. “When I learned about CCCL and I knew about St. Jude and the partnership that they have in Lebanon, I decided to apply to CCCL.” 

Since 2002, St. Jude has partnered with the cancer center supporting children facing both disease and crisis. Azhari joined the organization in 2010. In addition to her work for families undergoing treatment, she supported educational campaigns on cancer treatment that partnered with local schools. 

“We created awareness in the schools … to educate students about cancer,” Azhari said. Her work ensures that no parent loses hope after their child receives a cancer diagnosis. 

Now the center’s Director of Employee Experience and Operations, Azhari was its eighth employee when she joined. Sixteen years later, in 2026, the center has grown to 50 employees and weathered difficult challenges — including helping sick children caught in major international conflict. CCCL operates in association with the nearby American University of Beirut Medical Center. 

Lebanon took in the highest number of refugees per capita following war in Syria, and recent conflict in Lebanon further exacerbated the refugee and displacement crisis in the region. Traveling to CCCL in Beirut for lifesaving treatment was not always an option for displaced families. 

“Some of the parents living in the affected areas during the war — they lost their houses and they were not able to come daily to the hospital to take the treatment. They were obliged to live in the public schools with many, many other people around,” Azhari explained. 

The housing conditions of displaced families created an additional danger for children receiving cancer treatment, many of whom have weakened immune systems.

To address how instability was impacting patients’ cancer treatments, the organization created a patient care task force two days after the war began.   

“We made sure to call each and every parent to know where they were living,” Azhari said, “And we arranged transportation and housing to make sure they were coming to the hospital to take their treatment.” 

Children with cancer and their families were navigating treatment between airstrikes. To reduce the need for travel to access treatment, CCCL expanded its access to treatment. 

“At that time, we partnered with many hospitals around Lebanon to make sure that the people coming from the North were going to take the treatment there and not face the danger (of travel),” Azhari said.

In August 2025, Azhari was elected as a Foundation Standing Member of the St. Jude Global Alliance’s Eastern Mediterranean Regional Advisory Committee. The Alliance, which includes more than 400 member institutions and foundations from more than 90 countries, aims to increase access to quality care for children with cancer and other catastrophic diseases. In the Eastern Mediterranean Region, it supports the creation of partnerships and cooperative networks of healthcare providers to build capacity, strengthen educational and research programs, and reinforce advocacy and resource mobilization. 

Azhari is looking forward to continuing to expand the center’s ability to provide lifesaving treatment. As they hire more employees, she hopes the center can treat over half of childhood cancer patients in Lebanon. “We hope to be able to give more and more,” she said. 

It is estimated that 400,000 children worldwide develop cancer every year, and half of them are never diagnosed. In many low- and middle-income countries, less than 30% survive due to the lack of access to quality care. St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital believes children all over the world deserve the same chance at survival and is working with doctors and foundations across the globe to make that dream a reality.