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The Middle East Children’s Alliance currently supports several projects in Gaza, including psychosocial support for children; workshops for parents covering, nutrition, health, water hygiene, and psychological distress; clean, safe water for schools (Maia Project); kindergartens and libraries; food and medical aid, plus warm clothes and home weather protection; training for all MECA partner centers on working with children who have experienced trauma.

Last year, at the request of the Sanabel Women’s Association, MECA helped start a preschool/kindergarten for the families in Al-Heker, an impoverished, rural community in central Gaza. Sanabel has developed farming, embroidery, sewing, and catering projects that generate income for women and their families.

The mothers of young children working at Sanabel projects or elsewhere in the community badly needed a place and a program for their children. There are no public kindergartens in Palestine and very little affordable childcare or preschool. The Sanabel kindergarten was established with funding from MECA.

MECA Gaza Projects Coordinator Safaa El-Derawi reports, “The main goal of this project is to provide a safe environment for children to develop in healthy ways. In addition, the project provides four jobs for women, and fees are affordable for the families.” Safaa goes on to describe the positive impact the program has had on the children, including a traumatized little girl named Haya: “She is a four-year-old child. She was suffering from speech problems, isolation and fear. In partnership between her teacher and a psychologist through various ways of intervention, she started to get better. The greatest moment was when she called her mother ‘Mum’ for the first time.”