Hi My name is Bilal and on my recent holiday to Lebanon I happened to watch a documentary on one of the local morning shows where I saw Christel telling her story from the time she realised that she was different to other children her age.

Christel comes from a very modest family where the mum had to give up her teaching job just to tend to her daughters’ needs especially Crystel.

Approximately a week later my wife and I were visiting my sister in law when to our surprise saw Christel and her mum who happened to be my sister in law’s best friend having coffee together.We spent the next 3 hrs going over Crystel’s enduring story.

Every morning begins the same way for Christel. The hum of the dialysis machine echoes faintly in the back of her mind, a reminder that her body’s rhythm is different from others her age. Christel was born with Spina Bifida and undergoes kidney dialysis three times a week. But none of that defines her.

What defines Christel is her smile when the stage lights hit her skin. It’s the way she lights up when the curtain opens up revealing the audience behind it. On those rare weekends when she’s not too tired from the week’s dialysis, she performs—sometimes acting, sometimes singing.

Her mother, is always nearby. A quiet warrior, she lifts, wheels, dresses, encourages, and waits. She carries Christel in and out of her wheelchair with grace—into cars, onto hospital beds, and backstage at theatres. It’s not easy. Some days, Christel sees the fatigue in her mum’s eyes. Other days, she hears it in the silence between them as they drive to another dialysis session, another hospital ward.

“One step at a time, sweetheart,” she always tells her daughter.

Christel's days are a combination of maneuvering through narrow doorways, managing bladder issues, tolerating stares from strangers who don’t understand why she’s “too young” to be so sick. But even on the toughest days, she finds moments of softness: painting her nails in bed, singing along to various local and foreign artists.

Her wheelchair, named “Christel” too—a cheeky inside joke—has become more than a mobility device. It’s part of her. Just like the scars on her lower back or the tube snaking under her shirt, connecting her to the machine that cleans her blood.

I’m hoping to raise enough money to reprieve her mum even for a little while from having to ask relatives for help with the weekly dialysis and medical expenses also to pay for corrective surgery on her jaw which gradually degenerated as a result of the continuous dialysis and lastly to help her achieve her dream of getting on an airplane for the first time to visit Egypt.

I would like to thank in advance anyone who wants to help Christel live with dignity.

I have included below a link to one of Christel’s work that n theatre

https://youtu.be/BOI3uI05zwE?si=5YUNA3DCbX9pJUCj

Ps: As donations from Lebanon are not accepted by GoFundMe 

You can donate directly into Christel’s following WISH account 

Christel Salame 

Account ID 30847060-03