Happy Childhood Foundation
Our vision
One smile at a time
We envision a world where no child's future is defined by what they cannot yet do, where every child, regardless of ability, background, or circumstance, grows up healthy, educated, protected, nurtured, and free to play, and where every family finds the care, the support, and the community that believes in them.
Our mission
We build programs, spaces, and communities that give every child access to the five things childhood cannot exist without
We work alongside families, specialists, and partners to remove every obstacle standing between a child and their full potential, because any barrier to a child's development is an injustice, that we are not willing to accept.
We celebrate every step forward.
We challenge every limit.
Our 5 pillars
We believe a happy childhood is not built on one thing alone. It is built on five. Five fundamental rights that every child deserves, regardless of who they are, where they come from, or what challenges they face.
These five pillars shape every program, every initiative, and every decision the Happy Childhood Foundation makes.
Basic Needs
Shelter, food, clothing, and minimum stability allows everything else to follow.
Essential conditions are the basis for a dignified life.
We work towards ensuring those needs are met.
Protection
Safety is not a service we provide.
It is a right we defend.
We create and advocate for environments where every child is shielded from harm, abuse, and neglect.
Health
We provide and facilitate access to physical, psychological, and rehabilitative care.
We treat the whole child, in body and in mind, at every stage of their development.
Education
Knowledge is the one thing no one can take away.
We believe that every child, regardless of ability or circumstance, has the right to learn, to discover, and to grow intellectually.
Recreation
Play is not a reward. It is a right for children.
Joy, creativity, and free expression are as essential to a child's development as any clinical intervention.
We create opportunities for children to simply be children.
Our goal
Our goal has never changed: to create environments filled with expertise, respect and affection, where every child's personality, talents, and potential are honored, and where every step forward is celebrated.
In 2012, HCF Lebanon inaugurated its first rehabilitation center in the country at Hotel Dieu de France hospital [HDF] in Beirut, quickly establishing it as a landmark of pediatric rehabilitation excellence in the region.
To date, the foundation has provided full rehabilitation care to hundreds of children facing a wide range of conditions, spinal cord injuries, brain traumas, cerebral palsy, muscular and skeletal impairments, and orthopedic traumas. Many of these children come from underprivileged backgrounds, and for all of them, access to world-class care has been made possible regardless of circumstance. In addition, the center provides rehabilitation care to the wider community; in total, over 40,000 therapy sessions are provided every year, and the number is growing.
In 2024, HCF Lebanon inaugurated its second rehabilitation center at Cortbawi Hospital, also in partnership with HDF.
Over the years, our sister foundation in Africa also provided rehabilitation support to children in need (equipment and training). We have successfully implemented several other programs in health, education, protection, recreation, and basic needs; they all fulfilled their purpose, impacting the lives of thousands of children.
Our values
Our strongest tool,
the community
Empathy & Inclusion
We welcome every child exactly as they are, visibly or invisibly different, with a physical condition or a mental one, simple or complex.
Children here are never alone in their journey, families find each other, and staff feel part of something larger than a job.
Families are partners in everything we do, never spectators.
We see the uncertainty behind every first appointment, the hope behind every question, and the exhaustion behind every smile.
We are present for all of it, the clinical moments, and the human ones.
Our non-negociable,
impact.
Expertise & Professionalism
We hold ourselves to the highest standards, not only for the sake of being professional, but because every child in this center deserves nothing less.
We are not afraid of what we do not yet know, because the best care is always one discovery away.
We say what we do and we do what we say.
We earn trust through consistency, outcomes, and honesty.
We measure our impact not only in the number of sessions delivered but in lives changed, every milestone, every child who goes further than expected, every family that leaves stronger than they arrived.
Our conviction,
optimism.
Transparency & Trust
Our optimism is more than a principle. It is a practice, built from every child who went further than anyone predicted and every family who dared to believe with us.
We always encourage more. They say we are stubborn, we say we are patient. Because we have seen what happens when someone refuses to accept a limit that has been set. "It's possible" is not something we say. It is something we prove.
Trust is not given. It is built, step by step, milestone by milestone.