The United Nations Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Middle East (UNRWA) has signed an Aid and Development Agreement with Mercy-USA to provide critical health and educational interventions to Palestine refugees living in the Gaza Strip.
The US $ 250,000 contribution will fund around 3,5000 mammograms of vulnerable Palestinian refugee women. Other health measures include providing medical equipment for eye tests to ensure that more than 90,000 students are screened for visual impairment through services administered by UNRWA schools' health teams. In addition, blood glucose meters and glucose medication are being made available to hundreds of diabetic Palestine refugees, most of them children.
The contribution also supports educational offers for 520 visually impaired refugee girls and boys who are cared for in the UNRWA Rehabilitation Center for the Visually Impaired (RCVI). The funds will be used to provide dozens of tablets to students to ensure access to education, especially in the event of a return to distance learning in the context of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Mercy-USA is also funding upgrades and repairs to the RCVI facility's yard and solar power system to improve the learning environment for students and their teachers. Through its specialized training, rehabilitation, orientation and life skills courses, the RCVI has helped thousands of visually impaired students gain the skills and confidence they need to successfully overcome barriers to accessing education and job opportunities in Gaza. This is Mercy-USA's third round of funding for the UNRWA RCVI, providing invaluable support to the centre's critical services.
UNRWA's health, education, assistance and social services are three of the agency's core programs that are made available to Palestine refugees in all five of its areas of activity. In the Gaza Strip alone, the UNRWA Ministry of Health has historically recorded an average of 4 million patient consultations in 22 health centers each year. In addition, the agency is proud to offer free primary education to more than 286,000 girls and boys at 278 schools in the 365 km² enclave.
Mercy-USA, a longtime partner of the agency, is committed to alleviating human suffering by supporting projects that primarily focus on health, nutrition, and economic and educational empowerment.
Background information:
UNRWA is facing increased demand for services due to the increase in the number of registered Palestine refugees, the extent of their vulnerability and their increasing poverty. UNRWA is funded almost entirely by voluntary contributions, and funding has been exceeded by growing demand. As a result, there is a large gap in the UNRWA program budget that supports the provision of basic essential services. UNRWA encourages all Member States to work together to make every possible effort to fully fund the Agency's program budget. UNRWA emergency aid programs and key projects, even those with major deficits, are financed through separate funding portals.
UNRWA is a United Nations organization founded by the General Assembly in 1949 with the mandate to provide humanitarian aid and protection to registered Palestine refugees in the organization's area of operations, ie the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, Gaza, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria. to a just and lasting solution to their plight. Thousands of Palestine refugees, who lost their homes and livelihoods in the 1948 conflict, have been displaced for over seventy years and are in need of substantial assistance. UNRWA helps them to reach their full potential in human development through high quality services in the fields of education, health care, relief and social services, protection, camp infrastructure and improvement, microfinance and emergency aid. UNRWA is financed almost exclusively through voluntary contributions.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT:
Mshasha herself
Director of Communication, Spokesperson for Arabic Language
Mobile: +972 (0) 54 216 8295
Office: +972 (0) 258 90724
Email: s.mshasha@unrwa.org
Tamara Alrifai
UNRWA spokesman
Cell phone: +962 (0) 79 090 0140
Email: T.ALRIFAI@UNRWA.ORG