Meet the man who has fostered over 80 terminally ill children in Los Angeles. Mohamed Bzeek says Islam “teaches me if somebody needs my help and I can help, then I must help.
There are close to 35,000 children monitored by the Los Angeles Department of Children and Family Services, and at any given time, about 600 of these children have severe medical needs. It is difficult to find foster parents to take care of these children, as the likelihood is extremely high that they will pass away.
When the Department of Children and Family Services needs to find a home for a sick child who is likely to pass away, his is the one name they think of.
Mohamed had his first experience with the death of a foster child in 1991. She was the child of a farmworker who had breathed in toxic pesticides while she was pregnant. Born with a spinal disorder, she didn’t make it to a year old before she passed.
The loss was extremely hard on Mohamed, who has said that the key to caring for these children, is that “you have to love them like your own”. Shortly after that, Bzeek and his wife decided that they would only take in terminally ill children whose medical options had been exhausted.
Mohamed has dedicated himself to taking in the abandoned, providing them a home, a family, and showing them love and compassion. He has sacrificed so much of his life to ease the suffering of innocent children, ensuring that they have some comfort in their short time on this Earth.
Continue Reading: Video: Meet Mohamed Bzeek, Foster Father to LA’s Most Vulnerable Children (English)