Stories from the Field

Frequent arrests, military raids, over 600 Israeli military checkpoints, severely restricted freedom of movement, and ever-expanding settlements occupying more and more land are all a part of life in the West Bank. Conflict, poverty, unemployment, and isolation have left its residents with an uncertain future. The physically and mentally challenged, who according to WHO estimates make up 7-10% of the Palestinian population, are far from immune to these issues. To make matters worse, continued conflict, landmines, and political instability mean that the number of challenged individuals will continue to rise. They are subjected to societal prejudice and lack of opportunities. Discrimination against the physically and mentally challenged is widespread, and extends into the educational system. This prejudice, combined with the very poor state of accessibility throughout the West Bank due to hilly geography and lack of reliable public transport, means that young, challenged children are often denied the chance to attend school.

Children, in particular, are sensitive to the traumatic events which characterize life in the West Bank, and it affects their development acutely. Disabled children may be faced with two challenges, both the physical handicap of, for example, a hearing impairment, and the emotional damage caused by the sudden loss of a family member due to the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Displacement and an uncertain future are felt by children as well as adults. They are deprived of the sense of stability and social cohesion that is critical for healthy psychosocial development.

The Palestinian Authority does not have the resources to aid these children. Funding for specialized schools is not readily available, and the economic crisis throughout the West Bank means that resources remain scarce. Restricted movement and occupation have taken their toll on the West Bank economy, and in turn on the funds available to the Palestinian Authority. This means that it is up to Non-Governmental Organizations like Human Concern International to fill the gap, and give the children the education they need for a real chance at a fulfilling life.

Without education physically and mentally challenged children are often doomed to a life of dependency and poverty. To prevent this from happening they must be reached at as young an age as possible. Numerous studies have shown that early childhood development is crucial for success later in life. In light of these facts HCI, along with local partners like the Vocational Rehabilitation Workshops Society for Girls (VRWSG), have established a unique kindergarten in Bethlehem targeted specifically at physically and mentally challenged children with a special focus on the hearing impaired; there is much work to be done in the field of providing early education opportunities for special needs children in Palestine and The Human Concern Kindergarten (which was given its name by the local partners in recognition of HCI’s efforts in the region) is proud to be one of the pioneers that provides these children with a much needed sense of normalcy and stability that is sorely lacking in the lives of West Bank children. It gives them the confidence they need to face the enormous challenges which await them later in life.

The school has a capacity of forty children. That is forty Palestinian children who are given a safe haven, specialized training, and a chance at a better future. Teachers trained in sign language give hearing impaired children the chance to fully communicate. Furthermore, the school not only aids the hearing impaired, it is also fully accessible to the physically challenged, and has staff ready and able to deal with whatever difficulty the children may face, whether is it physical or mental. The school is fully equipped, and all facilities (rooms, entrance/exits, door, kitchen, toilets, playground, etc) are approved by the Ministry of Higher Education as fully accessibilities for children with mental, hearing, or physical impairments. Its staff includes counselors specially trained to work with deaf and mute pre-school children, as well as social workers capable of providing psychosocial support.

Helping children is critical for the future of the West Bank. It not only aids the children themselves, it also aids their parents and families through the activities organized by the kindergarten. It teaches children to become self-reliant, which will in turn relieve future financial burdens placed on family budgets already stretched to the breaking point by restricted movement and a depressed economy. Outreach activities inform parents of the importance of educating their children, and sign language training is given to the families of deaf and mute children so that they are able to fully communicate together. The kindergarten has helped boost the local Bethlehem economy by creating nine new full-time jobs. It not only symbolizes a chance at a better life for the children, it also represents hope for the future of the community.

Social workers employed by the kindergarten help to reduce the stigma that challenged children face amongst their fellow Palestinians. By working with local residents they encourage greater acceptance of physically and mentally challenged children throughout the community. This is done through actions such as the training of government workers in the use of sign language so that they are better able to communicate with hearing impaired children. The kindergarten itself ensures that challenged children meet others who face the same difficulties, and lets them know that they are not alone in their struggle. It is a bright spot in the otherwise bleak lives of children who are not often given the chance to succeed. Little by little we are working towards the day when these children will no longer be outsiders; a day when they will be able to contribute to the building of a more prosperous, accepting Palestinian society.

Every child deserves to be healthy; the proverb “healthy body, healthy mind” says it all; access to a good nutritious meal and developing healthy eating habits are vital for every child’s well being. In 2009, HCI introduced the “Farm to School Program” in Lebanon, where small scale farmers, low income students, and unemployed women living in rural areas were all linked in a holistic socio-economical cycle. The approach of the program has proven its efficiency and is a great success as stated by the beneficiaries themselves. To this date, hundreds of school-aged children have received several nutritious meals, learned about the path from farm to fork and have been provided with basic necessary information on healthy eating habits.

The program was specifically designed to target low income school-aged children, most of which are direct victims of war and scarcity and have to bear the difficult consequences of violence and deprivation that affects them and their families on many levels; whether on the income provided by the head of the family or on the quality of their meals at home. Dietary deficiencies can affect short-term health, increasing the risk of dental problems, obesity and anemia. In the long term, poor diet may increase the risk of coronary heart disease, strokes and diabetes. Some cancers are believed to relate to a low intake of fresh fruit and vegetables. Under-nutrition, even in its milder forms can have detrimental effects on cognitive development, behavior, concentration and school performance.

While implementing the Farm to School Program it was evident that complementary awareness raising activities concerning education and health should be implemented with the parents and care givers of these children giving them valuable essential tips on: healthy eating practices, food safety, hygiene and how to promote healthy eating and lifestyle habits, that can last a lifetime through specially designed engaging workshops and printed materials; Human Concern International is proud to announce the completion of the “Sohatak Bel Deni” manual, providing parents, teachers and caregivers with detailed essential information about cooking healthy food at low cost among other things.

The specially designed manual is a result of research done by a team of nutritionists and agricultural engineers and takes into consideration the access of the low income households to certain food items, as much as it takes in consideration the lack of access of these families to healthy living choices, and the common misconceptions about what is nutritive and what is not. The manual explains the ABC’s of what is healthy and what is not in an accessible format, it should be noted that the manual is not designed to alter the lifestyle of these families, but rather to reorganize their eating habits while keeping their financial budget intact.

The thirty-one-page Arabic manual is full of valuable information; from easy to understand food pyramids to recommendations on healthy eating habits such as consuming Omega 3 rich foods at least twice a week, from food safety advice such as the best way to handle and store poultry, to healthy cooking practices such as the use of vegetable oils instead of traditional ghee. A menu suggestion with recipes for healthy versions of traditional foods such as Okra stew and yoghurt salad is also included, each with its own calorie, Protein and carbohydrate breakdown. HCI did not forget to include an activity page for the children to color and have fun while learning.

Human Concern International is proud to publish and distribute this resource to enable communities, schools and caregivers to plan better meals for their children and by doing so contribute to their general overall physical and mental health and to their school attendance. The Arabic manual will be launched in various low income and rural locations around Lebanon, complemented with specially formulated awareness raising sessions held by qualified nutritionists; it can also be downloaded here free-of-charge in PDF format (7.74 MB): Sohatak Bel Deni Manual

The “Farm to School program brings healthy food from local farms to thousands of poor school-aged children in low-income remote villages. Moreover, the program teaches students about healthy eating habits that can last a lifetime. In addition, the use of local products in school meals and educational activities provides a new direct market for local low-income farmers. It also provides local women with temporary jobs in food preparation,” explained Abdo Raad — the director of Saint Saveur School and Orphanage. The school, located in the city of Joun, south of Lebanon is home to 70 orphans and vulnerable children and hosts 150 school children.

“It is a win-win situation for everyone,” he concluded during the inauguration ceremony of the kitchen supported by the German Embassy in Lebanon, as well as the opening of the third Lebanese-Palestinian youth summer camp which hosts Palestinian youth from camps in Lebanon, Syria and the Palestinian territories.

“We thank HCI for this important initiative which is vital for the revival of low-income remote areas,” commented H.E.M Brigitta Eberly, the German Ambassador to Lebanon who attended the ceremony.

The German Embassy in Lebanon contributed over $16,000 to equip the kitchen at the premises of the school/orphanage which will help HCI’s Farm to School project expand its scale and scope to reach out to other schools and orphanages in nearby villages, which is expected to benefit more than 700 children during the summer of 2009.

The inauguration ceremony was attended by H.E. Mrs. Bahia Hariri, Minister of Education and Higher Education and H.E. Mr. Mario Aoun, Minister for Social Affairs.

“Cause and Identity” is the theme of this year’s Lebanese-Palestinian youth summer camp which coincides with the celebration of Jerusalem as the 2009 Arab Capital of Culture. The 40 Lebanese and Palestinian youth come from different regions in Lebanon and from Palestinian camps in Lebanon, Syria and the Palestinian territories.

“Building bridges and trust and creating a platform for dialogue and sharing among Lebanese and Palestinian youth is the main objective of this summer camp,” H.E. Mrs. Hariri, the President of the Hariri Foundation for Human Sustainable Development (HFHSD), explained during a discussion with the participants. HFHSD is sponsoring of the summer camp.

The Lebanese Ministry of Education and Higher Education has been actively working in the past two years on integrating health and wellbeing topics into the Lebanese school curriculum, especially for elementary school students. “HCI’s successful Farm to School project which promotes healthy eating habits for school-aged children is a significant initiative that the Ministry of Education should consider adopting to improve student health,” suggested, Rabih Yazbeck, HCI’s Regional Director, during a conversation with the participants. “We hope that the summer camp’s attendees will benefit from our initiative, and take what they’ve learned back to their families and help bring awareness in their surrounding environment,” Mr. Yazbeck concluded.

The Farm to School Project was launched this March in two regions in Lebanon. To this date, thousands of school-aged children have learned about the path from farm to fork and healthy eating habits.

The program desires to support community-based food systems, strengthen family farms, and provide jobs for vulnerable women and nutrition for poor students hence contributing towards their health and well-being.

The family farm owners will have a chance of securing a steady income, the students will be motivated to get an education, and the unemployed women will have the opportunity of working and generating income. These benefits are not limited to economy and education, but also affect the overall morale of the residents.

On the long-term, the program will introduce waste management programs like composting, and experiential education opportunities such as planting school gardens, cooking demonstrations and farm tours.

What we are witnessing here are the combined efforts of the public and private sectors, and the civil society, local and international. These initiatives transcend all national, religious, and racial differences and have one aim in mind, the well-being of our children and families. At the end, humanity is the bridge that connects us all, and it lies ahead in anticipation of the courageous many who will attempt to cross it.

In May 2009, the HCI team launched two projects in Sudan that will provide credit capital and the necessary training and coaching to two new communities in two settlements in the south and the north of the capital Khartoum as well as a project which will promote entrepreneurial spirit among impoverished Sudanese orphans, and giving them the proper training in setting up and managing their own small businesses. Human Concern International has always made an effort to work with poor communities in Sudan; with 2 million Sudanese at risk of death, in addition to those who have been injured, displaced and have lost all of their support and care networks due to the continues civil unrest, poverty and lack of proper infrastructure, one should feel concerned. The living conditions in these settlements are extremely unsafe; while visiting the community leaders, we witnessed the cruel effect of poverty on people; in these two settlements people had built their houses from scrap metal, water was insufficient and unclean, sanitation services were nonexistent and the scarcity of food was visible on the children, someone even pointed out those dying from malnutrition.

This difficult image that we witnessed will soon be changing with these projects that were launched in partnership with several local long-time partners in Sudan, including Peace and Development Volunteers (PDV) and African Charity for Child and Mother Care (ACCSOM). One project will assist the rebuilding of Sudanese lives through micro credit, and provide access to finance programs for low-income Sudanese widows. The second project aims to unlock and unleash the economic potential of Sudan’s orphans that HCI has been sponsoring since 2003. Through the micro-credit initiative: 100 widows will receive loans for income generation and small businesses, 2 revolving loan programs will be established and will be operated by local communities, 2 local credit committees will be established at two targeted communities, and 16 people at two local credit committees will receive training in basic credit provision.

The second project’s objective is to assist orphans shift their mindset from being passive receivers of donations to active income generating entrepreneurs. Instead of being drawn into a passive cycle of receiving charity and relying on the kindness of others, 30 orphans will receive the training and materials necessary to embark on their own business ventures. They will also be given the opportunity to test their ideas under real-life circumstances, and take part in the “Business for a Day” program, in which they will operate a business for one day. An investment club, run by the orphans, will be set up. The club will be endowed with a trust fund, which will be invested towards implementing club activities. Thirty orphans, fourteen years of age and older, will take part in the first phase of the program.

The implementation of these two projects will provide the solid ground on which these widows and orphans can build their lives on, where the knowledge and the technical assistance will be provided by the project’s workshops and volunteer trainers and the revolving funds and loans will be in the hand of their own community to make use of, nurture and pass on to other needy members of their community to slowly but effectively reduce poverty levels within these two settlements.

Our field visits were not only to launch new projects, but to also follow up and connect with other local partners in these two settlements, where HCI has long been implementing relief and development projects that offer Sudanese orphans economic security through the child sponsorship program; where devastated, left out and marginalized orphans are given access to food, security and education throughout their sponsorship period. Our local partners took us to a library that HCI helped establish, where many of the sponsored children are able to have access to knowledge and information.

During the same visit, HCI and the Canada-based International Development and Relief Foundation (IDRF) launched a new interesting initiative in Sudan, related to International Water & Sanitation (IWS) and targeted in the first phase at building the capacity of Canadian international institutions in this area of technical assistance. To have a better understanding of the situation, HCI will prepare a comprehensive country analytical report in partnership with HCI local partner, Peace and Development Volunteers (PDV). The result of the report should formulate the ground in which HCI and other Canadian based organizations can implement large-scale interventions in Sudan to ensure water sufficiency, and opportunities for related income generating activities. Projects like these are vital and have the potential to fundamentally change many lives, especially in impoverished settlements like these ones. HCI also witnessed the launching of a new civil society-public partnership for the provision of family-based health insurance that our partners are engaged in.

In the last part of our very dynamic and productive field visit, we also got the chance to visit the health clinic that was established with the help of HCI to serve the new settlements in northern Khartoum. The health clinic has outstandingly been operating autonomously, self sufficiently and effectively to serve the population with a professional team of health experts that are semi volunteering to cover the health needs of the area, from treating chronic illnesses to dental care. During our visit at the clinic, we came across a group of young boys in the process of being circumcised; our local partners explained the importance of having such traditional operations take place in a clinic by the hands of medical practitioners, instead of having them done the traditional way in an unsanitary environment that often yields harmful outcomes. Wandering around the clinic, we were content to see the staff operating professionally; taking care of the patients and maintaining the medical equipment to make sure that as many people as possible are able to benefit from it.

It was a busy week in the field in Sudan, but those few days have made us more confident after seeing the efforts of our local partners to sustain themselves and sustain project impacts and use all the available opportunities to help their communities. As the humanitarian situation in Sudan is deteriorating, HCI feels obliged to double the efforts to provide immediate relief to those who are in need, especially those that are most vulnerable; orphans and widows.

“HCI contribution has improved the lives of many families living in despair and gave hope to many hopeless children. Just watch the smile of every child who benefited from HCI school bags project you can then see the great impact the project had on those children” commented Sarah Barakat, President of HCI local partner in the West Bank, Vocational Rehabilitation Workshops Society for Girls (VRWSG).

Among many stories of need and despair that was revealed to the VRWSG team, the story of Jihad, an 11 year old orphan from Hebron, was the most touching. Jihad almost fell into tears while holding his new schoolbag, not believing that he will go to school with a new schoolbag this year. He came to the VRWSG center where some of the school bags were distributed. Upon receiving his bag, he thanked one of the volunteers by saying “Every year, I either use an old one and fear that my books will fall off, or I wait, as some of the neighbors might pass me another one that their child used to have, and I use it hoping that it wont break soon”, Jihad was smiling and would not let go of his bags. All the volunteers at the center were very touched, seeing him that happy.

The distribution of the school bags, stationary and school supplies this year was a natural response to the needs of the families included in an assessment carried by the VRWSG in the towns of Hebron and Bethlehem, to identify projects that can provide instant support to poor families.

The holy month of Ramadan and the beginning of the school year together in the same month were one of too many expenses on families barely making a living. By offering a schools bag, stationary and school supplies, around thousand family were able to make sure that this month would end smoothly, without having to make a hard decision, like taking a child out of school to cut expenses (most probably a female child). A women from Batir village shouted out laud while receiving the school bags: “I did not know where to get the money to buy school supplies for my daughters. Please make sure to pass my gratitude to HCI”. The VRWSG team was happy to hear such comments; still, they knew that together with the HCI, a long road is still waiting ahead, especially while working in Palestine, were the Israeli occupation constitutes the main obstacle in reaching people in need.

The villages that received the school bags could have simply waited forever till the school bags arrive if the volunteer’s convoy was not so determined to carry on. “We don’t believe in failure. We believe in challenging the obstacles we face in order to succeed”, commented Mariam, a VRWSG team member. Her comment summarizes the group of women determination to overcome many of the challenges in working in volatile area such as the West Bank. “When we were delivering the school supplies to AL Woljeh village, we were asked by the Israeli soldiers to step down from the car and we were interrogated about the bags, and we were requested to open each and every single one of them, as they were not exactly thrilled with the idea of helping Palestinian students. After a brief argument, and after ten bags were opened and thrown on to the ground, we were released, and were able to deliver the bags,” Mariam explained. “Another check point in Hebron stopped the team of the Union of Palestinian Women Committee for three hours without a reason. They were forced to stand up under the sun for about three hours before releasing them,” she concluded.

As Palestinian students go to school, and as families celebrate Ramadan and look forward for the Eid, not having to worry about some of the school expenses, and not having to pull one of the children out of the school, HCI is planning for additional projects to improve the lives of these families, especially the life of their children. This is what HCI does: help alleviate human suffering through projects that foster self-reliance, self-directness and preserves human dignity.