Mennonite
Central
Committee

Helping Palestinian children and families cope with trauma

Tim Shenk
July 13, 2006

MCC is providing $29,600 Cdn., or $26,000 U.S., to a Palestinian women's organization to help families and children to cope with the trauma of Israeli attacks in Gaza.

Recent Israeli attacks on Palestinian targets, including public utilities, have cut electricity and water supplies in much of Gaza. Local residents are traumatized by gunfire, bombing and the sonic booms of fighter jets.

Culture and Free Thought Association, a women's organization in Gaza's Khan Younis refugee camp, operates community centers for children, teenagers, women and cultural events. The association is using MCC's grant to hire five trauma counselors and to purchase a generator and fuel to provide electricity at the community centers.

The counselors will work with a volunteer drama team from Culture and Free Thought Association to help children deal with trauma creatively by writing and performing skits about their experiences.

Recent Israeli attacks in Gaza began on June 28 in response to attacks on Israel by the Palestinian Hamas movement. Israel is demanding that Hamas release a captured Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit, and halt rocket attacks on Israeli communities. Hamas is demanding the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.

Alain Epp Weaver, an MCC representative for Palestine, Jordan and Iraq, says that the violence is contributing to a humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

"All of this comes on top of the fact that you have a very high poverty level in the Gaza Strip," he says. "Up to 80 percent of the population is living on well under $2 a day."

Israel has greatly limited the flow of goods and people in and out of Gaza in recent years, according to Epp Weaver. Since the recent violence began, Israel has almost completely closed Gaza's borders, and food and fuel have grown scarce.

Epp Weaver says that MCC is working on plans with partner organizations to deliver humanitarian aid in Gaza.

MCC has financially supported the work of the Culture and Free Thought Association for the last 10 years. MCC currently provides about $11,400 Cdn., or $10,000 U.S., a year to support the association's children's center, which provides extracurricular activities for about 400 children.