Improving nutrition for children; support for education

Background

The basis for production has been destroyed in the Occupied Palestinian Territories as a result of years of conflict. Furthermore, since the new administration was formed following the elections in January 2006, aid from most donor countries has been stopped and people's lives have become all the more difficult. JVC is providing assistance for the nutrition and care of children who have been affected by the conflict and the economic crisis.

Summary of activities

1. Support for improved nutrition

Amidst the conflict and economic crisis in Pales-tine, many children are not receiving adequate nutri-tion and are lacking necessary vitamins and minerals. In the Gaza strip, where the situation is very serious, JVC is providing iron enriched milk and nutritional biscuits to children in kindergartens. At the same time, JVC is monitoring the children's nutritional situation and providing nutrition education to the children and their parents.

In 2005, we supported 500 children in five kindergar-tens. In 2006, we have been providing biscuits and milk to the same five kindergartens, and at the same time we have been concentrating on providing nutri-tion education and training for staff. Also, since the economic situation in the Gaza strip has become dras-tically worse, since May 2006 we have been cooper-ating with the local NGO Ald el Insan to provide emergency nutritional support by supplying nutri-tional meals to children who are severely under-nourished.

2. Supporting education and culture

In the Beit Jibrin refugee camp in the West Bank town of Bethlehem, the Handara Cultural Center ex-ists as a place where children can gather together and play in safety. Ever since the Center was opened, JVC has supported summer camps for the children as well as the sale of embroidered goods that are made by the mothers. Summer camps were held in both 2005 and 2006. The children who participated in 1999 when the Center was first built came back to work as youth leaders in this year's camp.

3. Psychological care for children suffering from trauma

It has been reported that over 90% of Palestinian children show symptoms of trauma such as daily anxiety and stress, nightmares, bed-wetting and re-duced concentration spans. JVC is providing medical and educational support for children suffering from severe trauma through the Holy Charity Programme (HCP), the only special school in the Bethlehem area. We are supporting trauma care through musical ther-apy and speech therapy and we are also supporting training for staff.

Since we started supporting the programme in Sep-tember 2005, we have seen an improvement amongst the children who have difficulties with communica-tion and who have received speech therapy. In 2006, we have been concentrating on providing training to specialists.

4. Mobile health clinic

The separation wall and military checkpoints that have been built in the West Bank have limited peo-ple's ability to move, making it difficult to go to hos-pital and as a result the health situation has deterio-rated. JVC is contributing to a mobile health clinic that is managed by an Israeli and a Palestinian NGO. In autumn 2005, staff from both of these NGOs vis-ited Japan, where we held symposiums in nine places around the country in order to raise awareness about the health and human rights problems under the oc-cupation. In 2006, we have been supporting the mo-bile health clinic at village level.