A significant number of our community members are experiencing personal problems ranging from joblessness to family violence through marital discord, and from teenage suicide to mental, emotional, and physical illness. These problems are seen in the society at large, but are compounded in immigrant communities by the stress of relocation, naturalization, lack of acculturation, conflict of moral and cultural values, and at times bi-cultural existence. All too often these problems go unrecognized until it is too late. Some of the major reasons for the neglect are denial, stigma, lack of awareness, and accessibility to information and appropriate support system in the community.

Based on the realization of these problems and the pressing need to do something about them within our own communities, a group of dedicated community activists with a broad-based community support made a commitment to establish a not-for-profit multilingual, multi-cultural social and health service agency known as The Hamdard Center for Health & Human Services. The Center has been operational since 1992, with its administrative offices located near Chicago at 355 N. Wood Dale Rd., Wood Dale, Illinois 60191.

We need to address the many growing problems within our own community because of the different cultural, social, and moral values and family dynamics, services must be tailored to the unique needs of our South Asian and Middle Eastern communities. Thus a different paradigm of care is required in which services are readily available and are user friendly (multilingual), and have a strong family and community focus.