Gaza Emergency Relief Fund

My name's Sara Azmoudeh, and I'm a Communications Coordinator at Rebuilding Alliance. I recently interviewed Site Engineer Heba to learn about her work as part of Rebuilding Alliance's Gaza Emergency Relief Fund.

Last fall, Engineer Heba joined Rebuilding Alliance to expand the Gaza Emergency Relief Fund to help more families in Gaza make their meager homes liveable. Born and raised in Gaza, Palestine, she is an architectural site engineer with a bachelor's degree in architecture from the Islamic University of Gaza and has experience in construction supervision. Engineer Heba came highly recommended by a Gaza architect who is currently a fellow at Harvard. 

This project requires special skill: the ability to stick to a very tight budget while spec'ing construction solutions that meet the family’s needs. Eng. Heba works with all four of Rebuilding Alliance's NGO partners, traveling from the North to the South of Gaza to do this. 

From January to March, Heba worked with two of Rebuilding Alliance's partner organizations, the Women Programs Center — Rafah (WPC-R), and the Youth Vision Society (YVS), to refurbish eight homes. Here are the WPC-R project highlights:

• Mr. Abed's family consists of 8 individuals, one of whom suffers from liver disease. Our team was able to complete all of the home repairs the family requested, including repairing the leaky kitchen roof. 
  
  
• Mrs. Sharifa's family of four needed fundamental re-working done to their kitchen and bathroom and new windows and doors to help them cope with Gaza's hot summers and cold winters. Heba worked with YVS to spec the bids then signed-off after local contractors completed plastering and tiling, installing the sink mixer and washbasin in their bathroom and kitchen, painting the walls and repairing electrical wiring.
  
  
• Single mother Mrs. Maha and her two children had a newly constructed home that was incomplete, and so the family had yet to move in. Eng. Heba identified what was needed: tiling installation, aluminum windows, and an aluminum door for the restroom. The work was complete in just six days!
  
  
• In March, Eng. Heba upgraded a home for a 28-year-old woman who has Multiple Sclerosis (MS), a rare debilitating disease of the brain and the central nervous system. She lives with her mother and father on the upper floor of the house, and her married brothers live on the ground floor. When Eng. Heba first met with her, she gave her lots of time to speak about herself and describe her needs. Based on her assessment, our whole team concluded that she needed support both physically and mentally. In addition to home renovations, our partners at the Al Amal Center for Rehabilitation provides transit and services so that the young woman vists twice weekly to participate in a variety of activities. In Heba's words, "Before our intervention, she could not move around her home freely or use her bathroom because no aspect of it was fit for disabled persons. We spent a lot of time designing a bathroom for her unique needs and added grab rails for her to move around her home more easily."
  
  She went on to say, "This case is exceptional. Redesigning her home improved her physical well-being and her mental well-being. Having the ability to move around her home independently has given her new confidence. When I first met her, she seemed like a quiet, timid woman. Now, I know that's far from true; whenever I see her, she has a story to tell me and plans to share."

With YVS, four family homes located in Gaza's Al-Shati Refugee Camp (also known as Beach Camp) were refurbished.  The matriarch of the Ali family told Eng. Heba that she needs to reconstruct her home because "we suffer from many issues including darkness, dampness, and cracks in the walls." Eng. Heba signed-off on YVS's work as they installed new bathroom and kitchen essentials including granite counter tops, sinks, and fixtures, plastered, painted, and tiled.

Thank you for supporting Heba's incredible work though the Gaza Emergency Relief Fund. I will leave you all with something Heba told me during our call that motivates my mission to empower her work in Gaza. I hope you will feel the same: 

"When I meet the families and learn of their experiences, it is all deeply personal. These families are part of me. We often live in the same city; we are part of one community. I try my best to make them happy and support them. Even though I know my help won't satisfy all their many needs, our help goes a long way."

Until next time,

We have an exciting announcement. The Gaza Emergency Relief Fund is ramping up to do more rehabilitation and construction. Our goal is to use your donations to build customized quality housing for the most marginalized families as we work with them to help them find sustainable ways to earn a living despite the blockade.  Big challenges.
 

Two new team members are joining Rebuilding Alliance:  Site Engineer Heba El Khozondar and Gaza Architect / Harvard Fellow Salem Al Qudwa.

• Site Engineer Heba El Khozondar is a graduate of the Islamic University of Gaza with 10 years of experience as an architectural engineer. Working with RA’s Non-Governmental Partners, she will meet with families in need to develop plans to fix or improve their homes, and participate in the bidding process to choose an acceptable contractor, and inspect construction.
  
  
• Architectural Engineer Salem Al Qudwa holds B.Arch and M.Arch from the Islamic University of Gaza (IUG) in Palestine (2003, 2013), and a Phd in Design from Oxford School of Architecture in England (2019). He is currently a Harvard Fellow in Conflict and Peace at the Religion and Public Life program program in Harvard Divinity School which describes him as, “An award-winning architect and university lecturer, Salem explores everyday architecture as a resource for positive social transformation. His project at Harvard is to design and articulate a model for the reconstruction of communities devastated by conflict. By recognizing the agency and social responsibility of architects, he wants to confront conventional attitudes surrounding residential reconstruction in Gaza by creating a nurturing and safe environment for women and children, and empowering communities.” He’s bringing his insight to Rebuilding Alliance as a program advisor.
  
  

Here’s what we’ve completed in the last 4 months, since my last report: 

In June we paid off the 80k debt incurred when RA’s four NGO partners delivered emergency supplies during the bombings in May. When they saw families hiking through the dark to take refuge in UN schools, we knew how to help and we trusted that many people would step up to donate. Store managers trusted that RA would make good on our pay-forward promise, and we did.

Housing and rent relief were our priorities for the summer as families ungently needed to recover from the damages of the bombings in May. Sadly, one housing rehabilitation remains incomplete because prices skyrocketed in the middle of the project when Israel closed the border, preventing the arrival of construction materials including the windows we were waiting for. We hope to address this very soon as the borders are open now (though our partners report that construction materials are still expensive). Three of our NGO partners completed the following work for 12 families:
 

Women Programs Center Rafah: 

• The Women Program Center — Rafah was able to build a small new house (645 sq. feet) for $5000.  Rania, a mother of two whose husband is ill, was nearly homeless. Now they have a home with a bathroom, indoor plumbing, electricity, tiled flooring, and a backup generator. That said, hers is the house that is not yet finished. Rania says that her children are happy. The bathroom allows them to have a bath to cool down in hot weather, and the generator installed means they won't be scared of the dark when the power goes out. We look forward to completing Rania's house soon.
  
  

Soon after the bombings, a masjed (mosque) in Wales reached out to us to ask if we could specifically help families whose homes were damage by bombing. With thanks to them, our partners decided to focus on families in the north--the area hardest hit.

Al Basma Club for the Disabled: 

• ABCD helped five families living in Jabalya Refugee Camp. Three families now have proper kitchens and bathrooms. One family received a month’s rent relief. Another received food, milk, and diapers for their children.
  
  
• ABCD also had issues with supplies getting more expensive after the border closed, but the contractors in the project lowered their fees to help these two families. The contractors offered this without being asked by ABCD. ABCD also did their best to find affordable vendors.
  
  
• A young man from one of the families was rejected by his fiancee’s father because of his disability and the poor state of his home that was hit by shrapnel. However, after ABCD helped him rehabilitate his home, his father-in-law approved the wedding, and the couple were married on September 29th. Mr. Eid, ABCD’S Executive Director, was invited to the wedding and sent us a video of the men dancing!
  
  

Youth Vision Society

• YVS helped six families whose windows were blown out. Rehabilitation varied from window repair to kitchen and bathroom renovations. One family also received a month’s rent relief.
  
  
• Father of three, Ibrahim, said, "Having dilapidated windows made my home insecure and affected everyone in my home, especially in winter time. Now they are fixed up, I feel that I'm well prepared to welcome the winter with a warm heart."
  
  

Thank you so much for helping Gaza families heal and rebuild their lives. We're honored that you care about them and keep them in your hearts.

Links:

• Aesthetic Value of Minimalist Architecture in Gaza, Mr. Al Qudwa
• Mr. Al Qudwa interviews a Gaza family about housing (Eng. sub)
• Celebrating at the wedding (video)