Jenin Refugee Camp

Around 14,000 people live in Jenin Refugee camp which was founded in 1953; it was reconstructed by UNWRA in 2002 after ten days of intense fighting and occupation by Israeli Forces, during the Second Intifada. It is very overcrowded, and has only four schools and one health centre. Its occupants suffer a great deal because of very high unemployment, and threats to personal security because of ongoing operations by Israeli and Palestinian Security Forces which lead to frequent clashes and violence. It is the northernmost of the nineteen refugee camps on the West Bank, and is in the same area as our adopted village of Rummaneh.

Al Jaleel Rehabilitation Centre

Established in 1991 under the auspices of UNWRA, it became an independent Palestinian non-governmental organization called Al Jaleel in 2010. Al Jaleel currently offers a wide range of services and programmes:

• Summer camps and social activities promoting inclusion,
• Support to families with adults and children who have special needs,
• Speech therapy, physiotherapy and  occupational  therapy programmes,
• Prostheses and assistive devices to those who are disabled. These are expensive and always require finance.

It has a dedicated and skilled staff but a huge demand for its essential services. Funding is always short, particularly during this time of COVID. What the Centre is able to do, makes a huge difference to the lives of people with a disability who live in Jenin.

What can we do?  We have recently decided to extend our support to include the Jenin Refugee Camp. With the money that you have helped us raise early in 2021 we sent £350 to the Jenin Creative and Cutural Centre and we have given £500 to Al Jaleel to buy the physiotherapy and occupational therapy equipment that it really needs. Dr Hisham Kabeya, Head of Occupational Therapy said this would enable him to buy some essential equipment that is needed. If you have professional skills in speech therapy, physiotherapy, occupational therapy or other relevant areas, perhaps you might consider being a ‘listening ear’ for the professionals in the Al Jaleel Centre discussing cases and treatments on an occasional basis. If you would be happy to do this please contact Dr Sue Davies (smbdavies19@gmail.com)

We would also like to be able to offer regular contributions to Al Jaleel, and would like you to consider making a small, regular contribution, say £5 or £2 [or more if you are able] monthly, to their work. In this way together we can send a useful sum of money to Al Jaleel, for their valuable work, on a regular basis. If you would like to make this commitment then please can you e-mail our supporters’ secretary, Ann Dorsett (dorscrox@aol.com  ) THANK YOU SO MUCH. DIOLCH O’R GALON!