Stories from the Field

A group of underprivileged Iraqi and Jordanian children volunteers met after school over couple of months to rehearse for a play called The Happiness Forest.

The play served as a safe and effective space for the children to learn lessons on peaceful coexistence, pluralism, gender equality, tolerance and non-violence.

The play was debut on the prestigious Royal Cultural Center in Amman, Jordan and was attended by hundreds of children from the same unprivileged neighborhoods.

The play is produced by Noura Al-Qaisi and directed by Mohamed Amro in participation with New Development (NDev) and Jordanian Child Theater.

Human Concern International has been actively involved in the West Bank and Gaza for the past decade building self-sustainable short and long term development projects in addition to providing relief and humanitarian assistance that foster self-reliance, self-directness and preserves human dignity for the sake of the disadvantaged groups in Palestine. Thanks to a quality network of local grassroots partners that we have assembled in the past decade.

Our main aim is to improve the social and economic well being of poor Palestinians and help them to cope with the difficult situation they are going through. Tens of thousands of disadvantaged families in the West Bank and Gaza have benefited from HCI programs for the past decade, helping them to rebuild their lives and launch them on the path to self-support and maybe even beyond, towards prosperity–which they surely deserve.

Our latest dispatched trucks loaded with basic food items to Gaza by land, helped 2,000 poor families struggling to survive with little access to the basic necessities. This may be little but it helped besieged needy Gazans survive the deteriorating living conditions–even if it is just for few days.

But so much more needs to be done, and there are very few funds available for us to increase our programs or to launch new ones. That is why we are making this special appeal for help. Please donate generously and help HCI help the ordinary people of the West Bank and Gaza.

The border village Al-Wazani, an underprivileged agricultural village in Southern Lebanon located directly on the Lebanese-Israeli border, was heavily affected by the July-August 2006 war between Lebanon and Israel. In addition to the total destruction of infrastructure, the loss of lives and an economy suffering badly from the recession that followed the war, livestock losses during the war are estimated at 1 600 high-yielding milking cows and more than 20 000 goats. The families that already lived in fragile conditions before the conflict, found themselves facing a very difficult situation with the loss of the much needed income; most of them having no savings to make new investments.

HCI project is helping hardest-hit farming families to recover their livestock losses and resume their production activities which include milk production and processing into local yogurt and cheese. This involves the distribution of milking cows to those families and providing them with technical and veterinarian assistance. The project involved the development of a revolving livestock scheme, but requiring the first newborn cows to be given to other families in need. The project also involved conducting a comprehensive survey in Al-Wazani area by profiling hardest-hit farming families and conducting a needs assessment for shortlisted families.

Located directly on the Lebanese-Israeli border, the southern village of Marwahin was heavily affected by the July-August 2006 war between Lebanon and Israel.

On July 15 2006, a strike on a convoy of civilians fleeing from the village killed twenty-one people, including fourteen children. The tragedy of these poor young people and of their desperate attempts to survive their repeated machine-gunning from the air is as well-known in Marwahin as it is already forgotten elsewhere.

It would take years for Marwahin’s children to overcome the psychological effect of this tragedy. Psychosocial support for Marwahin’s children is vital to help heal the wounds from this tragedy.

On October 2nd and 3rd this year, with the help from HCI and local partners, hundreds of children from Marwahin gathered to celebrate the first and the second day of Eid el-Fitir. The Kermes was organized in the village’s main square where hundreds of families and their children from Marwahin and nearby villages had the chance for the first time since the tragedy to celebrate the Eid.

The project aims at improving the social and economic well-being of vulnerable Iraqi refugees in Zarqa, Jordan, particularly persons with mental and physical impairment, female-headed households, elderly and children.