Volunteers bring smiles to children’s faces in Gaza Refugee Camp

JERASH — Children’s smiles were much in evidence at the Gaza Refugee Camp on Saturday.

Eighty girls and boys between the ages of nine and 12 engaged in fun activities facilitated by volunteers from the East and West Centre for Human for Human Resources Development (WE Centre).

During the 10-day camp, which started earlier this month, students are taking part in recycling workshops, sports and dance lessons.

“The children are so excited about such activities. They get to express themselves and feel confident and productive,” said Raeda Talaat from the refugee camp’s community development office.

Learning to make miniature planets with papier-mâché, Asma and Rama said they will teach their siblings how to use old materials to create toys and trinkets.

Lauma Briviba, organiser of the workshop’s activities, said the centre has been holding these events in the Jerash camp, some 48km north of Amman, for four years now.

“The camp is in need of such events… people are more depressed here,” she told The Jordan Times, noting that the lack of sufficient funding hinders efforts to expand activities to other refugee camps.

“We mostly depend on private donations,” Briviba noted, adding that volunteers from Latvia, Italy and France, among other countries, are taking part in the workshop.

According to the
UNRWA website, the Gaza camp is home to 20,000 Palestinian refugees and suffers from “overcrowding”, “high unemployment”, the “lack of income-generating projects” and a “lack of sanitation labourers”.

Established in 2008, the WE Centre is a non-governmental, nonprofit organisation that aims to build institutional and individual capacity and push for positive change in the local communities in cooperation with the grass roots, according to their website.