In the densely populated refugee camps, people have lost their sources of income since early March 2020 due to the emergency curfew in our fight against COVID19. To keep our communities safe, action is needed to provide crucial items to the most vulnerable households. Karama's immediate step is to distribute food&health packages in 5 camps (serving 45,000 people). As soon as the situation allows, Karama will continue with an innovative resilience program that rehabilitates local livelihoods.
The Coronavirus is a grave threat to the Palestinian refugee communities, who live in densely populated areas and have very limited livelihood opportunities. The restrictions on public life have closed off many sources of income for the population, who have little other assets and rarely any savings. While immediate support is needed to provide key food items to the community, also a long-term solution is needed to restart livelihood pathways and rehabilitate local economic life.
Karama Organization is active since 2002 in refugee camps of the southern West Bank and has immediate access to the most vulnerable households as well as private sector. Karama aims to facilitate the delivery of food&hygienic packages to the most needed families of the over 45,000 refugees living in this area. At the same time, Karama is setting up its resilience program, which should rehabilitate livelihood opportunities in line with community goals once movement restrictions are slowly lifted.
We need to avoid a return back to dependency. Karama focuses on the resilience of our refugees while solving immediate needs as well as the medium-term. Distributing packages will keep our families healthy and diminish the need for them to resort to unsafe coping mechanisms. Karama will start with resilience activities as soon as possible such as an innovative Cash-for-Work program and rehabilitation of women-led businesses. This will contribute to community goals and restart local economic life