Visit September 2023

September Visit on the 5th. and the 6th..

 

Yearly in September, we go down to visit the schools of Gaza to see how many children are registered and to know their needs for this coming year. It appears now that we have 350 little ones ages 3 to 5 years old. 

We saw many red eyes and tears in the classroom of the 3-year-olds who were going to school for the first time. They were having registration and two of the schools had already two classes of children in action. The teachers play a lot of games at the start to get them used to school. We hope to get them school materials: crayons, colored pencils, paint, etc for the children and the teachers. We visited three schools and Sabah had gathered the information when she visited two schools as we were late at arriving the first day. The parents purchase a workbook for their child, often paying for them after payday at the end of the month if one has a job.

It was extremely hot in the 30ies those two days and the electricity is on only 2 to 4 hours a day now. We try to be sure that each class has enough windows so the children can see as they work.

Each school has a different list of needs for their school. We hope that we have the funding to cover these items such as tables, chairs, whiteboards, bottled gas for the kitchen, etc.

A few more people are allowed to leave Gaza now to work or to visit relatives abroad. They can go to Jordan now and from there go abroad.

We hope that this next academic year will bring peace as war increases the poverty of many.

 

                                  September 8, 2023

Photogallery

Visit June 2023

 Visit June 20^th. 2023

Sr. Fantiska and I went down for the day only. Renovations had been done for a family and the school of Fawyseh also had her bathrooms renovated. We started our visit seeing Fawyseh’s School and were very pleased to see the walls of the bathroom stalls were up and the sink for the children and water taps were installed. About half the work is still to be done.

After we went to see the family whose home had been completed. They needed many rooms to be renovated. We saw these areas completed: roof, flooring tiles in some rooms, and tile on the walls in the bathroom and kitchen. A bathroom, and a kitchen needed new fixtures. Best of all was seeing how happy all the family was. Again the rooms were very clean and organized. The handicapped girl of about 9 years old was clean and well cared for by her older sisters. The mother has poor vision or no vision in one eye. She does all the washing by hand for the large family; she asked if we could help her buy a washing machine for 400 shekels. We agreed that they need it. 

After we spent our time with Sabah discussing the summer needs. She will be away all of July and much of August so we needed to know how our programs will continue during those months. Wasel will still work during those months so things have been prepared for July and much of August. She will be helped by Sami our driver and by Summer; both have experience with our three programs which run in the summer months.