Aid for Children and Families in Gaza

We’re excited to share this video of a collaboration between MECA, ZamZam Water, PaliRoots, and the Union of Agricultural Work Committees to provide food parcels to 1800 families in Gaza. As always, MECA strives to support the local economy while providing much needed aid for families. With these food parcels, many Palestinians farmers and cooperatives benefited and the end result was a healthy and local package of eggs, vegetables, beans, lentils, rice, cheese, za’atar and more.

Thank you for supporting MECA's work in Gaza. We did another distribution of food parcels in late August as Gaza went into lockdown. Here is what one of our local partners in Gaza wrote about our cooperation:

"The Gaza Strip has been in a severe humanitarian crisis for the past 15 years, during which the coastal enclave was under land-sea-air blockade and faced multiple atrocities starting from the intra-Palestinian divide and ending up with three devastating Israeli attacks on Gaza. Unsurprisingly, these atrocities aggravated the situation and contributed to insanely increasing rates of unemployment, poverty, and food insecurity.

The Gaza Strip, as any spot in the world, has been afflicted with Covid-19, but for Gaza it has been different and tough; for it’s a densely populated area with an average of 5,500 people live per square kilometer. With the lockdown being strictly imposed by Gaza government, rates of unemployment and food insecurity have madly soared up. Accordingly, Gaza has been through gloomily bleak circumstances, yet luckily there always was the Middle East Children’s Alliance (MECA) which passionately stepped up to help Gaza people. MECA is a non-profit organization working for the rights, lives, and wellbeing of children in the Middle East. MECA has exerted tireless efforts to help people in Gaza and its work not only proved successful, but also achieved solidarity among people. Fortunately, MECA has been able to reach out to a large number of the most impoverished in Gaza and thus provided them with food baskets and recently with hygiene kits to help to protect them from Covid-19. MECA will always keep its work up and offer a helping hand to the poor so that they can equally thrive."

Links:

• Watch the video!

Before any cases of coronavirus were confirmed in Gaza, MECA reached out to our community partners to figure out how we can help prepare the clinics and hospitals in Gaza who face chronic shortages of medicine and medical supplies due to the Israeli siege.

MECA provided funds for the Union of Health Work Committees, the third largest health care provider in Gaza, to purchase N95 masks and other personal protective equipment for their staff along with antiseptic solution and other basic cleaning supplies.

Meanwhile, we are working on bringing large shipment of medicine into Gaza from Egypt.

And for families, we have distributed more than 2000 hygiene kits with cleaning supplies, soap, and antibacterial gel along with educational brochures about the coronavirus and practical advice on how to protect yourself and stop the spread of the virus.

To date, there have been 20 confirmed cases of coronavirus in Gaza but no large scale outbreak. MECA and our partners are continuing to do what we can to make sure families and healthcare providers are as prepared as possible and we call for the lifting of the siege on Gaza which has decimated its fragile healthcare system.

Links:

• VIDEO: Distribution of hygiene and cleaning supplies in Gaza