UNRWA 101

UNRWA 101
By Hanitizer
The UNRWA is the international organization that falls under the umbrella of the United Nation specifically geared to help the Palestinian refugees in the countries where they reside, that would be the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria. The UNRWA provides food, basic and limited medical aid, work, housing, and basic education. The head of the organization the General Commissioner is Karen Abu Zayad (who has a neat little Gaza office) oversees the budget, the operation and logistics as well as working with donors. The UNRWA receives donations form the international community: countries such Japan, Norway, Saudi Arabia and the States among others donate to its various programs. International NGOs also make donations to benefit the refuges through the UNRWA. And more recently individuals started to make donations toward the various UNRWA programs.

As I am in Gaza I had a chance to see some of their operation and I am impressed to say the least. There are roughly eight hundred thousand Palestinian refuges in the Gaza whom are covered under the UNRWA services. For example my grandpa left our town in 1948 is covered under the UNRWA mandate has diabetes and pressure, when he goes to the UNRWA clinic he has a blue color file that means he gets two refills on monthly basis. Usually they have his medications but sometimes, they do not have refills on time and he has to wait or go buy from a pharmacy. My sister-in-law took her baby girl Salam to the UNRWA clinic, the doctors there saw the little girl that has some skin irritation, they knew what was wrong with her, but they said they do not have medications for her condition and prescribed a medication to be bough from outside. As I spoke to the manager of the UNRWA warehouses, because their mandate is to provide very basic medical services, any medical equipments they receive form donors and they do not use in their clinics, they tell the donor to either take them back or offer to give them to the local Gaza hospitals that might have a need for them. Perhaps the greats advantage for donating to the UNRWA in Gaza is to help the Palestinian people and not get yourself or your organization into a mess with the US treasury Department for supporting a “terrorist” regime.

Most of my nephews and nieces go to schools run by the UNRWA, their schools are better than the government ones for one reason, they get the better teachers—they compensate teachers a bit more than the government schools. This year however due to increased demand on their schools as a result of the Israeli destroying few schools and since the people in Gaza have larger families. Few of my nephews and nieces have to commute to new schools, remember with no school buses this becomes harder. I have one niece that chose a local government school over the UNRWA school to save her time and money. The UNRWA provided the school children books and this year they actually gave away notebooks and $25 for each student. Because Israel allows so much items in, notebooks do not have a priority in getting into the Strip, unless an international NGO brings them, they might not be available in Gaza. As on September 1st this year dad retired of teaching for the UNRWA school system after seventeen years of service he will receive a respectable pension.

The other large UNRWA program is their food assistance, the UNRWA gives flour, cooking oil, sugar, powdered milk, and canned meat in addition to whatever food items donated the people. The beneficiaries of those programs are the needy refugees who receive those food assistance regularly as they need—determined by how their income and the number of children in the family. When funding is made available, the UNRWA takes offers from the local vendors for the food items they need. For example, the UNRWA needs 200 hundred thousand 30 kilos bags of flour, they ask local vendors to place their offers and they take the lowest cost. Their food comes labeled on what is contained in the bag, who donated it and other relevant food information. In occasion, those who receive the food aid, decide to sell it for cash to buy other needs, they usually can do that at the door right where they pick up their food stamps. I actually grew up eating some of the food provided to our home by the UNRWA.

The UNRWA provides other assistance programs for the refugee camps such as clean water and sewage treatment. All those jobs are performed by Palestinians in order to stimulate the local economy. After the most recent Israeli assault on Gaza, the UNRWA engineered toured damaged areas, surveyed destroyed homes, then evaluated how much to compensate for the damage. I am also aware that in order to create jobs, they hire Palestinians on temporary basis to sweep up the streets and collect trash. Also during the summer of this year, the UNRWA sponsored an all summer long “Summer Games 2009” for all Palestinian kids of ages 9 to 16, they could go to the local UNRWA school for summer camp and collect a nice uniform, swim in clean water and enjoy warm meals.

When I asked a friend of mine who works for the UNRWA about the need in Gaza as there are many needy people in Gaza who are not refugees and thus few take care of them. His answer was that it is already a burden to meet the demands of the refugees on the UNRWA’s budget. However, he informed me that when there is a surplus in donations such as this year, the UNRWA offered help to the families of the non-refugees as long as they are married to a person who holds refugee status. He also informed me that the UNRWA partners with other NGOs they offer aid to the non-refugees. Thus, the UNRWA helps more people without violating their original mandate.

I know the Israelis hate the UNRWA and wish it would vanish form the face of the planet because the existence of organizations like the UNRWA, stresses the existence of refugees and highlight their struggles. The UNRWA often suffers form random Israeli attacks and documenting such incidents hurt Israel’s image internationally. Some complain that the UNRWA helps people who have other means, but this is complicated. For example, when my dad worked for them, he could have asked for help in food assistance as a refugee, but he would not do it. Others might not be as honest. I know as a Palestinian refugee I see the fruit of their labor on daily basis as they offer essential services on the food and health fronts for people who might not have it otherwise.