Last week, Dr. Mona and I carried out field visits to some of MECA’s partners in Gaza. I’d like to tell you about what we saw when we went to Al-Mosader village.

Al-Mosader village is a poor, marginalized area close to the border. Many houses in the village were demolished in the Israeli attacks on Gaza in 2014 and have not yet been rebuilt due to the siege and the bad economy. So many people still live in makeshift homes. The situation is very bad in the village. Children have to walk long distances to reach their schools because they can’t afford transportation.

We visited Al-Mosader Kindergarten, where MECA funded a play room, puppet theater and library for children. It was great to see the children enjoying their new toys.

At the beginning of this year, the school organized a blood test and checked the height and weight of the 176 children at this kindergarten. Unfortunately, 63% of the children were found to have anemia and 10 children suffer from stunting as a result of malnutrition and food insecurity.

This visit is one of the things that inspired us to start a new project focusing on nutrition for young children in Gaza.