With the massive transformation of our lives and communities, we know this pandemic will further marginalize already vulnerable communities both here at home and abroad. To keep you informed about the status of all our projects, as well as the opportunities you have to support our work, below is a summary of some of KinderUSA’s…
For the safety of the children and our partners, while the Coronavirus continues to impact communities across the globe, our response is to operate with remote management in place canceling all nonessential travel. For some areas of operation, local guidance impacts our ability to carry out our programs such as our Mobile Library in Lebanon.…
Dear KinderUSA Supporters, In this extraordinary time, all of us at KinderUSA want to assure you that more than ever, we are committed to our mission to serve, and advocate for the Palestine children and their families. Due to the unparalleled events unfolding across the globe and here at home, KinderUSA is canceling our annual…
Following the tremendous success of our 2019 Ramadan Fundraising Iftar, we invite you once again to break fast with us as we help the most impoverished children and their families in Gaza and the refugee camps. We are very excited to have as our Keynote speaker this year, Professor of History at the University of…
The continued deterioration on the ground in Gaza, coupled with a blockade now entering its 13th year of land, sea, and air, has pushed more and more families to the brink further eroding their ability to afford basic needs just in order to survive. More than two-thirds of Gaza’s’ population is food insecure and more…
Your support remains critical as we usher in a new year and we thank YOU for standing with us, but more importantly, with the children in Palestine!
All of us at KinderUSA are thankful for donors like you who stand in solidarity and remain committed to the children in Palestine.
Rights of Palestinian children are violated on a daily basis.
For as little as $2 a day per child, your support will create a ripple effect of positive change.
Aid to Palestinians in Gaza today is absolutely a lifeline keeping more than half the population from going hungry. With the cutting of funding and the ongoing, strangulating, blockade now in its 12th year, Gaza is degrading to a point of “uninhabitable”, a warning by the United Nations (UN) in 2015, less than 3 months from…
With the massive transformation of our lives and communities, we know this pandemic will further marginalize already vulnerable communities both here at home and abroad. To keep you informed about the status of all our projects, as well as the opportunities you have to support our work, below is a summary of some of KinderUSA’s ongoing efforts.
With worldwide governments taking urgent preventative measures, KinderUSA has had to rethink how we implement our programs while ensuring both our beneficiaries and staff are protected. Schools, businesses, and public gatherings are closed compelling KinderUSA to ‘redesign’ programs in some cases, postponing others.
Children in the KinderUSA supported school in the Ein El-Helweh Palestinian refugee camp are now receiving lessons via WhatsApp. The parents also receive ongoing awareness updates on COVID-19 via the app. This is critical, as lack of information has increased the level of fear. The goal here, as in every refugee camp across the globe, is to mitigate a potentially catastrophic scenario. In Ein el Helweh camp approximately 80,000 people live in around 2 Km2. This, coupled with funding cuts to UNRWA and the economic crisis in Lebanon, leaves the populations vulnerable.
The nutritional meals program in both Gaza and Shufat camp has been postponed and we are redirecting efforts for Ramadan distribution in Shufat. There will be more information to come regarding this effort.
In Gaza, our Ramadan program is in full gear with farmers working their lands while the women micro-enterprise chicken farming project is ongoing and also preparing for Ramadan distribution. Throughout Gaza, our staff and partners are prioritizing social distancing and proper hygiene.
KinderUSA Ramadan farmers project is much more relevant during these extraordinary times and we remain committed to funding this vital program that helps vulnerable children and their families. “Our duty as humanitarians is to intervene in order to ensure the food security for the people in the Gaza Strip strengthening their immunity, especially the children,” said our partners Beit Lahia Development Society.
We will all get through this, but the power of our supporters is important and needed now more than ever.
Recognizing our privilege to work from home, we ask you to join us in offering sincere gratitude to all the moms, dads, brothers, and sisters who are on the frontlines helping to keep us safe. Most importantly, stay safe during these extraordinary and unsettling times.
For the safety of the children and our partners, while the Coronavirus continues to impact communities across the globe, our response is to operate with remote management in place canceling all nonessential travel. For some areas of operation, local guidance impacts our ability to carry out our programs such as our Mobile Library in Lebanon. While we continue to monitor the situation, we thought this would be a good time to expose’ the work your donations continue to make possible!
Children living in refugee camps and makeshift settlements across Lebanon lack access to the resources needed to cultivate their education. Specifically, the lack of free books inhibits a child’s learning and reading ability. Books play a pivotal role in developing proper language acquisition and understanding how to communicate which improves confidence and success in their studies.
To encourage young children to engage with reading, KinderUSA has partnered with Fingerprint of Change to implement a Mobile Library. This program helps develop literacy skills, opening doors to new futures, while fostering cultural understanding. It is paramount for children to develop these skills at a young age.
Since January, the Mobile Library has successfully served 141 children and youth across Lebanon covering camps from the north to the south conducting storytelling, incorporating learning activities, and exposing children to a variety of new books. These children are being exposed to learning resources and educational opportunities they otherwise would not have access to. In addition, the program has taught them to embrace learning as a positive, daily activity.
Your ongoing support will allow the Mobile Library to continue providing valuable educational opportunities to underserved children within the camps and beyond. By donating you are providing children access to free books and learning exercises that will feed their eager minds and grow into confident, independent learners!
Dear KinderUSA Supporters,
In this extraordinary time, all of us at KinderUSA want to assure you that more than ever, we are committed to our mission to serve, and advocate for the Palestine children and their families.
Due to the unparalleled events unfolding across the globe and here at home, KinderUSA is canceling our annual Ramadan fundraising dinner in Glendale, CA scheduled for May 9, 2020. Part of our decision was based on the strong belief that our supporters will stand with the Palestinian children from wherever they are and of course, we know social distancing saves lives and enables the health-care system to keep up and help those most at risk. For those who have already registered, we will be reaching out to you individually.
Going forward, KinderUSA coordinating team will determine a date to reschedule our event, Reviving Hope, in the fall once we are sure this unprecedented disruption in our lives has come to an end. In the meantime, please continue to support our efforts for the Palestinian people throughout Ramadan and beyond. It means so much to be able to count on supporters like you in critical moments like this.
Thank you,
KinderUSA Team
Following the tremendous success of our 2019 Ramadan Fundraising Iftar, we invite you once again to break fast with us as we help the most impoverished children and their families in Gaza and the refugee camps.
We are very excited to have as our Keynote speaker this year, Professor of History at the University of Michigan and Informed Comment founder, Juan Cole. Mr. Cole has written a new book entitled ‘Muhammad: Prophet of Peace Amid the Clash of Empires’.
Click the following link to purchase tickets. http://bit.ly/Iftar2020
The continued deterioration on the ground in Gaza, coupled with a blockade now entering its 13th year of land, sea, and air, has pushed more and more families to the brink further eroding their ability to afford basic needs just in order to survive. More than two-thirds of Gaza’s’ population is food insecure and more than 90% lack access to clean water with a health system on the verge of collapse.
Bassam, the father of 8 children, the youngest being 1, lives in a 2 room structure with no windows, situated on the border near Beit Lahia where flooding occurred recently and violence is ongoing. Unemployed like more than 50% of the male population, Bassam relies on humanitarian assistance to feed his family.
“I cannot move around and leave the house because of continued aggression and bombing. How do I leave my family with the sounds of explosions that happen around us? They are in fear and so am I,” said Bassam.
A recipient of KinderUSA’s Emergency Food Distribution program, Bassam and his family are just one of the 450 families who received fresh food parcels and dairy sourced from 18 local farmers whose families also benefited.
“I did not receive any food aid in the previous period and when I received this, it was needed and my family was very happy. The quantity and quality was some we have not had since Ramadan. I do not have money to buy this type of food for my family. This was the biggest blessing I could ask,” said Bassam.
Palestinians, and children in particular, continue to face enormous challenges paying the highest price for a reality not of their making. We are helping as best we can, but we do need your continued support. Please consider making an online donation today and help us help the most vulnerable. Thank you.
It was the beginning of this year when a parliament member tellingly stated, “Our lives take precedence to the quality of their lives.” He was referring to the Palestinians in Gaza.
In 2012, the UN published a report deeming Gaza unlivable by 2020 at a time when 29% of the population was unemployed. Today that number has been set by the World Bank at 53% with Gaza’s youth at 67%, and women over 70%.
Approaching 2020 in less than 48 hours, KinderUSA continues to respond to the most pressing need facing Gazan’s; food. The ongoing, suffocating, blockade, moving into its 13th year, drip feeds Gazan’s without the benefit of drinking water; 97% of which is undrinkable.
As we close out the year, we have ambitious plans going forward to make a greater impact on the lives of Palestinians. Your year-end gift today will continue to bring fresh food to families in some of the most marginalized areas of Gaza, train women in chicken farming, provide freshly prepared meals to kindergartens, and kick start a new mobile library in Lebanon that will serve children in the camps and Syrian settlements.
If you have already made an end of year gift, we thank you! If you have not, please consider making an online donation today. Our work is guided by your generosity which is an expression of solidarity with the world’s most vulnerable children whose future and well-being affect us all.
On behalf of the children we serve, our partner organizations, our board of directors and the staff of KinderUSA, thank you for your support and warmest wishes for a new year of peace, hope, and security for all.
Your support remains critical as we usher in a new year and we thank YOU for standing with us, but more importantly, with the children in Palestine!
In the United States this week we celebrate Thanksgiving, so we wanted to take an opportunity not only to thank you for supporting the Palestinian children and keeping them in your thoughts, but to take a moment and ask for your continued support in delivering urgently need food.
Ibrahim lives near the border in northern Gaza with his 7 children. His home was protected by metal sheeting on the roof, flour bags on the windows. In order to feed his family, he relies on charities and is unable to provide simple, basic household needs.
“The recent assault on Gaza brought more fear and burdens to our family,” said Ibrahim. “Our home took severe damage, but most important, we survived. We were lucky. In one night we are homeless and now live with relatives whose economic situation is no better and now has increased their burden by 9 people.”
Gaza continues to suffer from total closure, inflicting unjustifiable punishment on the civilian population. Ibrahim continues, “I ask only for the poor people and children who have no guilt for these attacks. At least we need to feel safe and to live in dignity and to be able to feed our children.”
KinderUSA needs your help to raise $25,000 to continue the emergency food distribution and help 500 families like Ibrahim’s. Close to 2 million people live in Gaza, more than half children and in need of food.
All of us at KinderUSA are thankful for donors like you who stand in solidarity and remain committed to the children in Palestine.
Once again, Gaza was under assault, facing a barrage of explosions, destruction, and death. In the latest round of violence, a number of Palestinian children lost their lives and many more have been wounded and remain traumatized. Of course, the senseless deaths of innocent children should never be normalized. These children are more than mere statistics. And these children of Gaza are terrified.
Wednesday, 20 November, is World Children’s Day, a day set aside to promote children welfare and international togetherness. It is also the day when the UN General Assembly adopted the Convention on the Rights of the Child which establishes global standards for protection, survival, and development of children, without discrimination.
Rights of Palestinian children are violated on a daily basis. They are denied adequate nutrition, healthcare, education, and protection from violence. With the ongoing blockade entering its 13th year, there has never really been a time to feel safe or secure. Rolling electricity blackouts, shortages of clean drinking water, rampant unemployment, and severe cutbacks in international aid have all combined to render Gaza “unlivable”.
Meanwhile, food insecurity in Gaza continues to rise, with more than 70% of the population food insecure. Nearly every household – up to 93% – are unable to meet children’s basic needs.
In times such as these, many good people can feel helpless in the face of so much tragedy. Children cower in fear due to circumstances beyond their control, and we struggle to make sense of the world’s silence. We need to remember that there is something, however small, that we can do to alleviate some of this suffering.
Many families in Gaza need food and are appealing to organizations such as KinderUSA to bring relief. Our partner on the ground has mobilized and stands ready to begin distribution of food. We are asking you to help us deliver an urgent food parcel to families in need for as little as $75. Please, donate today, whatever is meaningful to you, and join us on World Children’s Day and take a stand for the children in Palestine.
There are an estimated 24,000 residents in the camp, the majority children, on approximately 78 square miles, completely enclosed and cut off from Jerusalem by the Wall. Socio-economic problems are prevalent within the Camp and its surrounding areas, with 76% of the residents of East Jerusalem and 83.4% of the children living below the poverty line, according to the poverty report of the National Insurance Institute (2017).
The camp suffers from high unemployment and a prevalence of drug abuse among the youth. Children feel insecure and most live in poverty with little public space to play.
In partnership with the Women Center, KinderUSA is funding daily meals for 120 children along with sessions on healthy eating. Volunteers prepare the meals and provide coaching in healthier eating by avoiding the chips and candy prevalent in their diets.
One of the beneficiaries, Murad, comes from a household with 2 brothers and 3 sisters. His father is an invalid and unable to work so the family relies on charities for all their needs. Murad’s mother is grateful her son can have the benefit of the meal from KinderUSA and the Women Centre knowing it contributes to his well-being and reduces her concern about how he will receive a good meal that day.
For as little as $2 a day per child, your support will create a ripple effect of positive change enabling an environment that promotes healthier eating while building resilience!
Please make your donation today!
Aid to Palestinians in Gaza today is absolutely a lifeline keeping more than half the population from going hungry.
With the cutting of funding and the ongoing, strangulating, blockade now in its 12th year, Gaza is degrading to a point of “uninhabitable”, a warning by the United Nations (UN) in 2015, less than 3 months from now. Arguably, it already is.
Restrictions on movement and access to basic goods, 97% of its water not suitable for human consumption, health and education facilities struggling to meet the needs of a population with limited electricity – 4 hours a day for those without the means to purchase generators. Most critically, access to nutritional food with more than 68% of the population “food insecure” according the UN.
Aid to Palestinians in Gaza today is absolutely a lifeline keeping more than half the population from going hungry.
KinderUSA is continuing its Nutritional Meals program in Gaza, providing more than 32,000 meals to 14 kindergartens this school semester. Women cooperatives prepare the meals providing them with an income to care for their own families. For many of these children, it is the only meal they will eat that day.
“My son has interest in school now and is doing much better. Sometimes, he brings home his food to share with his brothers and mother who do not have the same benefit,” said Abu Ibrahim about his son Sajid who attends a school in Beit Hanoun. Sajid’s mother suffered a stroke and must rely on her husband to care for her and the children.
“There are 12 of us and I do what I can collecting junk for sale to bring food home. Most days, it is impossible and I must rely on charities to help feed my family,” says Abu Ibrahim.
There is always a determination and perseverance in the voices of Palestinians. But how long can this last? And what of the children?
Please continue to support KinderUSA’s Nutritional Meals program and all programs bringing relief to Gazan’s. We must continue our efforts and remain engaged for the future of all Gaza’s children.
We envision a free, just and peaceful Palestine where children thrive and look forward to a productive future, like children everywhere.
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