Upgrading Hospitals and Clinics

Healthcare Facilities in Disrepair

The problems at clinics and hospitals in Palestine, Lebanon and Jordan are widespread, from peeling paint and water damage to outdated equipment and a shortage of doctors.

These factors diminish the quality of care that healthcare centers can provide. With limited equipment and personnel, people needing care often have to wait in long lines or do without treatment altogether. These problems have life and death implications for the community members served.

Overcrowding, a lack of funds, deteriorating infrastructure and political instability are some of the main issues that affect the quality of healthcare facilities in Palestine (Gaza and the West Bank), Lebanon and Jordan. Bombs and other effects of war often leave behind damaged healthcare facilities.

Improved Conditions and Capacity

With help from people like you, Anera builds and upgrades clinics and hospitals, improving healthcare services for impoverished communities and people with disabilities.

Anera’s infrastructure work also has improved livelihoods for thousands of Palestinians and other local community members. The areas where we work tend to have high unemployment, and our projects constructing healthcare facilities help feed and support thousands of families seeking much-needed resources.

A Jenin Hospital delivery room before Anera's renovations
A Jenin Hospital delivery room after Anera's renovations

Anera implements infrastructure projects in Palestine, Jordan and Lebanon that build, upgrade, and expand hospitals and other health facilities. Over the past 15 years, we have built or upgraded scores of hospitals and clinics in Palestine and Lebanon, including building a brand new clinic in Beit Lahia, Gaza, upgrading the emergency rooms in Haifa Hospital in Burj El Barajneh, Lebanon, and installing a new elevator at a healthcare clinic in Jerash camp in Jordan.

Anera is also increasing access to affordable and sustainable energy and water by installing solar panels on health centers and by providing water filtration systems, usually run on solar. In recent years, we have installed solar panels on 26 healthcare centers across Gaza and Lebanon and 12 water desalination systems on healthcare centers in Gaza, where clean water is scarce.

Anera has helped the Central Blood Bank in Gaza with equipment, solar panels, a desalinization system and has supplied most of their blood bags and testing kits.

We also provide technical guidance and medical supplies that support the work healthcare facilities do, while easing their financial burdens. Money health administrators don't need to spend on medicines, supplies or electricity and water bills can be directed to providing the best quality care for their patients.

Healthcare and Treatment

Basic Healthcare is Hard to Access

Poverty and inadequate facilities are just two of the factors that prevent refugees and families in Palestine, Lebanon and Jordan from accessing basic healthcare.

In times of crisis, such as bombings of Gaza and Lebanon’s on-going economic and political collapse, adequate healthcare is even more inaccessible. Communities lose out on healthcare when there are no hospitals or clinics, when medicines are prohibitively expensive and when they are not prepared or educated to care for themselves under harsh living conditions.

Overcrowded, impoverished communities without sanitation facilities are breeding grounds for parasites, infections and communicable diseases. Some of these health issues can develop into more serious conditions, like malnutrition and liver and intestinal damage.

Treatment and Awareness

Anera makes healthcare accessible to refugees and families in Palestine, Lebanon and Jordan using a multifaceted approach.

We construct and rehabilitate hospitals and clinics, ensuring the physical capacity for healthcare in vulnerable communities. One of our major interventions is the installation of solar panels on health facilities in Lebanon and Gaza. The solar panels make use of an abundant resource – the sun – to ensure operations continue during frequent power outages. They also save money on electricity and fuel.

In Gaza, we are installing reverse osmosis desalinization systems on health facilities, so that medical machinery runs better and patients have access to safe, clean water at the tap.

Our medical donations program makes medicines available for free to families who cannot afford them. At times, these donated medicines offer life-saving treatment for chronic diseases. Anera also recognizes that the key to sustainably healthy communities is proper health education, so health awareness sessions are a cornerstone of our health programs.

We mobilized and empowered 8,000 households in Lebanon to improve their personal and environmental health through health awareness sessions.

Anera supported 22 future nurses in Lebanon with intensive training scholarships. 10 of our technical nurses passed their exams with distinction.

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Chronic disease medicines are essential for many in Lebanon. Unfortunately, medicine and especially chronic disease medicines are widely unavailable in Lebanon due to the ongoing economic and political crises.

Health Education

Poverty and Conflict Make Good Health Difficult

In refugee camps and vulnerable communities in Palestine, Lebanon and Jordan families often have limited access to basic necessities for health and hygiene.

Families living on low wages, or none at all, can’t afford essential items like toothbrushes and soap.

In the crowded Syrian tent settlements of Lebanon, the average tent holds five to 20 people. Communicable diseases and parasites spread rapidly in these living conditions. Many communities, such as those in impoverished neighborhoods of Gaza, lack access to clean water and sewage systems. Bathing and even washing hands can be a struggle. A lack of proper sewage systems leads to polluted public areas where infectious diseases thrive.

Families deserve to be equipped with the knowledge they need to stay healthy under challenging circumstances. Anera's training and education work helps communities rein in the spread of germs and disease.

A Little Help Goes a Long Way

Anera is promoting the message of good health through interactive, hands-on training sessions.

Together with people like you, we’re training healthcare professionals and community volunteers. We’re teaching healthy habits to children and administering programs that help parents identify symptoms and treatment options for various diseases. We’re also distributing generous donations of healthcare and hygiene items.

Proper healthcare for refugees is an integral part of Anera’s work in Lebanon, Palestine and Jordan.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Anera's health education materials and activities emphasized preventing the spread of coronavirus, debunking myths and promoting vaccinations.

Anera addresses the topics that are most relevant to youth from refugee and host communities, like amphetamine abuse and lice infestation. Our health volunteers teach communities about the importance of rational use of medicine and screening for intestinal parasites. And where sewage and dirty water are issues, as in Gaza, Anera organizes educational sessions on personal hygiene and water-borne diseases.

Together, we’re building healthy communities through public health education initiatives at schools and community centers so families can learn proper hygiene and healthy eating habits.

As part of Anera's Farms to Fosool (classrooms) program in Gaza, parents learn about healthy nutrition for preschoolers.

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VIDEO

Anera’s awareness program helps girls take better control of their own health needs.

Early Childhood Development

Disadvantaged Childhoods

Palestinian children suffer from many disadvantages that get in the way of their development.

No child should experience trauma, but the impact of living under continuous occupation and violence disastrously affects the mental wellbeing of children in Palestine who have never experienced any other reality. Four out of five children living in Gaza reported experiencing depression, grief, and fear.

Despite more global awareness about the importance of early childhood development to cognitive, social and emotional growth, only one-third of all Palestinian four and five year-olds in the West Bank and Gaza are enrolled in preschool.

Due to the tense and often violent surroundings Palestinian children are forced into from birth, quality early childhood development is needed to give children a healthy start.

Holistic Early Childhood Development in Palestine Preschools

Anera’s work in early childhood development in Palestine is built on a long-term, holistic, and sustainable model that combines physical infrastructure improvements in schools with comprehensive professional development trainings for teachers.

Anera established Right Start! — a comprehensive early childhood development program — in partnership with government ministries, non-profits, and training institutions. Right Start! is investing in key areas, including upgrades to preschool infrastructure, teacher development, improved learning materials, and community outreach. The program also addresses wider strategic issues by supporting the development of a national early childhood development strategy and policy.

Right Start takes a holistic approach to early childhood development. A key to building a vibrant, generous society is providing children the tools for critical thinking, tolerance and understanding, as well as nurturing respect for our differences and the basic rights of others. Our program incorporates creative elements, such as art, drama and play to encourage children to release tensions and emotions provoked by the conflict surrounding them.

Anera also provides fun and educational summer camps for preschool children in Gaza. These camps allow kids to escape the harsh realities of life and express their emotions in a safe environment. The staff use arts and crafts as psychosocial support for the children.

Anera has built or renovated more than 10% of the preschools in Palestine.

In partnership with other NGOs, Anera developed the national kindergarten curriculum launched by the Ministry in October 2017. The Ministry disseminated the curriculum to all (2,000+) kindergartens in the West Bank and Gaza.

Anera has also updated preschools in four of the 12 Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon.

How It Works

  • Teacher Training

    Teachers take in-service training courses to learn techniques for making their classrooms more active and child-centered. Mentorships help teachers as they put to practice their new skills.

  • School Builds and Renovations

    School and equipment are upgraded to make learning spaces more child-friendly, stimulating and safe. Anera builds new schools and renovates existing structures and installs bathrooms, easy-to-access water fountains, reading corners, and playgrounds with sun shades.

  • Let's Read

    Through Anera’s Hayya Naqra (Let’s Read) program, we instill a love of reading in children, teachers and parents. We provide quality materials and create special reading spaces in classrooms and community centers.

  • Expressive Arts

    Music, dance, drama, photography, fine art, storytelling and handicrafts are used to stimulate brain development and active learning.
  • Positive Parenting

    Anera's early childhood development program extends beyond the preschool. We train parents in positive parenting techniques and encourage them to get more involved in their child's education from an early age.

  • Child Health

    Anera's awareness sessions for families help increase their understanding of childhood nutrition, health and development. We also treat preschoolers for lice and parasites and deliver items like boots and shoes.

Anera’s early childhood development program provides 30,000+ Palestinian children with the right start in their schooling annually.

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Access to Clean Water

Threats to Water Access

Access to safe water is a basic international human right. Blockade, occupation, and climate change, however, make water access in Palestine a challenge every day. Only 10% of Gazans have access to safe drinking water in their homes.

Occupation and blockade limit Palestine water resources, and the over-pumping of wells depletes the fresh water supply while polluting what’s left. At the same time, old treatment facilities aren’t able to effectively treat water, and deteriorating pipes and pumping stations keep water from reaching homes, schools, hospitals and businesses.

Throughout Gaza, most tap water is unfit for human consumption. Some 97% of water from Gaza's aquifer does not meet the quality standards of the World Health Organization. The chemical and biological pollution in Gaza’s drinking water is due to high levels of salinity and fecal contamination, which are risk factors for hypertension and intestinal diseases that can be particularly harmful to babies, children and pregnant women.

Connecting Palestinians to the Water They Need

Anera addresses the issue from every angle to help ensure Palestinians have access to water when they need it.

In Gaza, Anera engineers focus on multiple projects to ensure vulnerable communities have adequate infrastructure for safe, clean water. Community infrastructure activities include flood prevention, storm water gullies, wastewater networks, solar pumps, and water desalination. Networks blocked with asbestos or rust are replaced with new materials. We train workers in system maintenance so that these solutions are sustainable for years to come. Since pollution caused by raw sewage limits access to clean water in Palestine, we also build and repair sewage and sanitation systems.

Anera's major funding for water and sanitation projects comes from Islamic Relief USA. With their support, our team in Gaza has implemented over 50 projects across Gaza. Our IRUSA-funded work has followed a two-pronged approach: improving water infrastructure and spreading awareness of practical hygiene practices.

  • Wastewater networks: We install underground tunnel systems for transporting sewage away from houses, removing waste from homes and pumping it to treatment facilities for treatment. In recent years, Anera has linked 2,340 homes in Gaza to reliable, safe wastewater networks, preventing families' exposure to pathogens.
  • Water wells: For many communities in Gaza, municipal wells are their main source of water. We have repaired six wells that serve tens of thousands of residents living in densely populated areas. In each of our well projects, we installed new pumping facilities that vastly improved water pressure in people’s homes.
  • Water networks: Water loss from dilapidated pipes is a big problem in Gaza. Often the pipes are undersized and can’t handle the demands of an ever-growing population. Anera has (re)connected 1,892 homes to new or repaired networks, using larger PCV pipes.
  • Storm water drainage: As Gaza’s population has grown and become more urban, many agricultural areas have been converted to residences, leaving less soil to absorb rain. The concrete culverts, manholes, and gullies Anera installs safely carry storm water away from streets, homes and businesses to basins that store the runoff and replenish the aquifer.
  • Hygiene awareness: Because water in Gaza is of such poor quality, Anera's water and sanitation work includes awareness sessions on personal hygiene practices (handwashing), household-level cleaning habits and food prep. We have reached thousands of families with these events.

One of Anera's most impactful water access interventions in Gaza is installation of reverse osmosis systems. Reverse osmosis is a water treatment process that removes contaminants from water by using pressure to force water molecules through a semipermeable membrane. With funding from a variety of individuals and organizations, Anera has installed 30 systems and counting, serving thousands of patients, students, medical professionals and community leaders in Gaza.

“I remember one hot morning in April when I heard the sound of a bulldozer digging its way through the streets just outside my house. I ran outside to see what the commotion was. A nice gentleman informed me they were installing a network in my area and I would soon have running water in my home on a permanent basis and at really affordable prices.” – Hanan | Rafah, Gaza

Irrigation

Not Enough Water for Farmers

The agricultural sector accounts for some 7% of economic input in Palestine and 5% in Lebanon, but drier seasons and political obstacles to water access mean that Palestinian and Lebanese farming families face major challenges to their livelihoods.

Farming has been a way of life since ancient times in Palestine and Lebanon. Agriculture makes up an integral part of cultural identity. It also offers opportunities for stable employment and sustainability.

In Palestine, however, the agriculture sector uses nearly half of the total available water for Palestinians. During the summer, West Bank farmers experience regular cuts in water service. In besieged Gaza, farming families suffering from poverty and food insecurity face a chronic struggle to get access to water.

Lebanon has the highest proportion of cultivable land, per capita, in the Arab world. Poor agriculture policies and practices, however, have hindered farmers from growing enough produce to feed Lebanon’s population.

Irrigating Farms and Greenhouses

Anera helps Palestinian and Lebanese farmers access and wisely use the water that is available to them. From simple rainwater collection systems to sophisticated networks, Anera has worked with farmers and agricultural cooperatives to set up efficient and sustainable solutions for irrigating farms.

Anera helps family farmers become self-sufficient by making the best use of limited space and water resources. We have built and repaired many hundreds of greenhouses on land and on rooftops across Lebanon and Palestine.

For greenhouses on soil, Anera's agricultural specialists install water tanks as well as drip irrigation systems connected to nearby water sources. We install environmentally-friendly solar water pumps for agricultural wells. Solar pumps let Palestinian farmers have a sustainable water source for their agricultural lands, despite the many challenges they face on a daily basis.

From 2019-2022, Anera built or repaired greenhouses for 1,093 families across Palestine and Lebanon.

Rooftop gardens use spaces that otherwise sit empty. Anera erects small greenhouses on roofs and fills them with growing containers that use wicking beds, a layering system that allows the water to irrigate from the bottom up. These containers use a fraction of the water that traditional farming does. Anera is installing these rooftop gardens vulnerable communities across Jordan, Lebanon and Jordan.

In the Ramallah and Jenin governorates of the West Bank, Anera built systems for using treated wastewater to irrigate farms and municipal parks that serve thousands of farmers and city residents.

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ON-THE-GROUND REPORT

From drier seasons to political obstacles, Palestinian farmers face daily challenges to their way of life, but they are responding with resilience and creativity.

Women and Girls

Women and girls in Palestine, Lebanon and Jordan often face a harsh reality when it comes to employment and other opportunities.

The unemployment rate among women is much higher than among men, and they get paid less. Gender stereotypes and roles can get in the way of personal and professional advancement. Women and girls also can fall victim to domestic violence and early marriage. And the challenges that come with menstrual hygiene can limit girls and young women in very real ways.

Yet, despite and because of all of the difficulties life throws in their way, women and girls are a powerful force in the communities Anera serves. They are mothers and caretakers. They are breadwinners and providers. They are advocates for positive change. They are leaders in their fields and role models for young people and their peers.

Strong and inspiring women and girls are at the heart of many of Anera's program successes, because when they have access to educational and economic opportunities, they invest in their communities and improve the lives of everyone around them.

Teaching Job Skills

Anera’s vocational training program in Lebanon works with local organizations to teach job and life skills so that young people are ready to join the workforce. The majority of students are young women and they participate in a range of trainings, from plumbing to graphic design, that enable them to support their families in places where jobs are scarce.

Affirming That Women Can

Anera's Women Can project helps women in Palestine to increase their economic autonomy and financial resources. Hundreds of women entrepreneurs in the West Bank and Gaza have turned their dreams in a reality, starting or growing their small enterprises. Anera supports them through training, seed funding, mentorship, and other capacity-building activities. Now these heads-of-household can better support their families.

Reducing Early Marriage

Research reveals that education is one of the most, if not the most, effective mechanisms that prevents early marriage. Anera's Sama Project provides cash payments to families to support the education of Lebanese, Syrian, and Palestinian girls and break cycles that lead to dropping out of school and marrying young. The project also engages men, boys and community members by raising awareness of the importance of continued education for girls.

Supporting Women's Centers

Anera has long supported cooperatives and other centers that bring women together, providing them with space to work, learn and gather. We build and renovate infrastructure, provide training and partnership, and pay women for their work that directly contributes to Anera programs. Among some of our valued partnerships are CSSL in Gaza and the Women's Programs Association in the refugee camps of Lebanon.

Ending Period Poverty

To combat the period poverty that has become epidemic among vulnerable refugee communities in Lebanon, Anera hosts awareness and education sessions and distributes menstrual hygiene supplies. In conservative, traditional societies, menstruation is rarely discussed. Anera is trying to break the cycle of silence so that mothers in this and future generations understand the importance of breaking stigmas and educating their daughters.

How It Works

  • Education Opens Opportunities

    Women and girls are in the majority when it comes to seeking higher education. However, they often don’t share the same advantages as their male peers. Anera’s vocational training and mentorship programs build marketable skills that give them a competitive edge.

  • Investment Transforms Lives

    Often women are their families' main breadwinners, whether they are refugees in Lebanon or heads of household in Gaza, where men cannot find jobs. Anera helps women get ready for success by providing equipment and infrastructure, graduation kits with tools if their trade, and professional mentorship along the way.

  • Partnerships Make It All Possible

    Anera partners with women and girls who are leaders in their communities. These inspiring people are there every day investing their time, energy, creativity, their hearts and sometimes even their own limited resources. They set the example and improve the well-being of their expanded family – the men, women and children who benefit from their generosity.

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Meet Nusaiba

She's making use of her new sewing skills from Anera's vocational education program to add an artful presentation to the preserved foods, or mouneh, that she makes and sells with her mother.

Livelihoods

Struggling Economies

Lebanon Palestine and Jordan have some of the highest rates of unemployment in the world.

The economies of the countries Anera serves are all strained. In Gaza, a blockade and regular bombardments have decimated the local economy and cut off commerce. By some estimates, Gaza’s unemployment rate is the highest in the world. In the West Bank, checkpoints and walls disrupt the flow of labor and trade, limit imports and exports, and hamper development. In Jordan, unemployment is alarmingly high among youth and women. And Lebanon has suffered an economic collapse that has frozen bank accounts, led to sky-high inflation, and made the currency almost worthless.

Anera works within these harsh realities to build livelihoods so individuals and communities can pursue dreams and withstand new challenges that may come.

Economic Development

Because of our deep roots in the communities we serve and our experience in confronting all-too-regular crises, Anera is able to build up livelihoods in the harshest conditions. We do it by monitoring market needs, opening learning opportunities, providing equipment and capacity building, creating infrastructure, and putting people to work.

Anera provides vocational training, cash-for-work, and apprenticeships tailored to match market needs. In Lebanon, our vocational training courses have launched thousands of youths into careers in nursing, construction, IT, farming, cooking, graphic design, sewing, and more. We also provide young people with on-the-job, cash-for-work experience delivering humanitarian relief in their communities.

Across Palestine, our Women Can program has worked with hundreds of women to help turn their entrepreneurial ideas into businesses. They are, among other things, raising livestock, selling handmade clothes, running restaurants, and opening beauty salons. These heads-of-households can now support their families.

Our work with farming families spans Palestine, Lebanon and Jordan. A small plot of land or an empty roof provide ample space for Anera agronomists to erect greenhouses with water-smart growing systems. Families can grow what they need to eat and can sell the rest for income.

Anera’s school feeding program in Gaza sources its produce from farmers who have benefited from our agricultural programs and employs women from a local cooperative that is part of Anera’s women’s economic empowerment program to prepare nutritious meals for kindergarteners.

Our projects also directly provide work for people across a variety of sectors – construction, civic planning, health, education, and more. Staff come from the communities they serve and they work with local contractors and institutions to deliver quality programming.

How We Help

  • Training & Education

    Anera provides market-driven training and vocational education opportunities so that young people and entrepreneurs can build up the skills they need to run their own businesses or find good jobs.

  • Infrastructure

    Anera builds infrastructure like schools, community centers, cooperatives, greenhouses, recycling facilities and more to provide spaces for learning, working and coming together for mutual support.

  • Apprenticeships and Cash-for-work

    Anera creates links with local businesses to place newly trained young people into apprenticeships. We also employ new grads or members of cooperatives to deliver relief programs.

  • Staying Local

    Anera works with local contractors and businesses when implementing projects to add to local economies and to build the capacities of the community. We also integrate programming to create local value chains so that projects are sustainable beyond the life of the grant.

FILM

This film features six people who have flourished over the years thanks to the on-going support of Anera's community of donors.

Parks and Playgrounds

The Reality

In the urban sprawl of cities, impoverished villages and refugee camps, there are few public areas that are clean and safe for families to gather and for children to play.

Municipalities in Palestine and Lebanon are short of funds for every service, and often provide parks and playgrounds are low on their priority lists. More often than not, children end up playing in the streets or trash-filled fields.

Refugee camps, new and old, Syrian or Palestinian, are crowded places. In the concrete labyrinths of the 70+ year old Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon and Palestine, all spaces are in use. So, the work Anera does is renovation and upgrading of what is there, whether it's a community sports facility and field or a playground attached to a school.

Syrian refugee camps are new and often in areas where there is land nearby or they may be near Lebanese villages that have recreational areas. Anera creates new spaces for fun and sports or renovates existing spaces, which benefit all communities.

Anera's Response

Anera partners with local municipalities, nonprofit organizations and schools to upgrade existing parks, playgrounds and sports facilities or to identify areas suitable for adding new recreational spaces.

We design and renovate these spaces integral in the communities surrounding them. Whether a playground attached to a preschool, a sports field in a crowded camp or a sports facility in an impoverished area, these spaces bring recreational outlet where it’s most needed.

In many communities across Palestine, Anera built their first ever parks. Um Salamuna is one such community in the West Bank. Before Anera's intervention, residents had to travel 12 kilometers to Bethlehem where the nearest park was located. The new park has a playground, a multipurpose room, a small amphitheater, handicap-accessible bathrooms, family seating areas, and colorful murals with uplifting, positive messages. In Jericho, we built a new club for all kinds of activities and fun.

Some communities have existing sports facilities and spaces, but they are in bad need of upgrades or complete overhauls. In Lebanon, Anera has improved the facilities in the Palestinian refugee camps of Nahr El Bared, Ein El Hilweh and Beddawi. We upgraded the oldest, biggest sports club in Palestine. Anera also renovated a park and sports center in the middle area of Gaza.

Anera leads the way in working with preschools across Palestine. We have built or renovated over 10% of schools. Playgrounds are a part of every upgrade or new construction. These little areas provide safe, fun playground equipment to the preschoolers and, often, children in the surrounding areas.

Our projects have changed the landscape, turning vacant, rubble-filled plots of land into beautiful safe havens for families.

How It Works

  • Consultation

    Consult with the municipality and identify a plot of land in an area that needs recreation space.

  • Design

    Design parks and playgrounds, landscaped with benches and eco-friendly plants and trees.

  • Construction

    Hire and oversee the work to construct the park or playground.

  • Maintenance

    Monitor the maintenance and upkeep of the park or playground. 

Anera completely renovated the soccer field in Beddawi refugee camp, from the playing field and spectator stands to a playground for younger kids.

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Palestinian Refugee Camps

The "Forgotten" Refugees in Lebanon

Since 1948, some 450,000 Palestinian refugees have registered in Lebanon. Though still registered there, many have since moved on to third countries, in search of better opportunities. Of the refugees who are still in the country, more than half are living in overcrowded refugee camps surrounded by poor Lebanese communities. In some of the camps, Syrian refugees have also moved in, adding to the space and resource pressures.

The twelve Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon were meant to provide temporary housing, but 70 years later, hundreds of thousands of stateless Palestinians still live in crumbling camps.

Residents of these Palestinian refugee camps face staggering rates of joblessness, violence and disgraceful housing conditions. They often refer to themselves as “forgotten people” and feel a sense of isolation and neglect. For most, comfort and privacy are elusive luxuries. Young Palestinians have few prospects for finding a job or leading a fulfilling life.

The Refugees in Palestine

In Palestine, refugees living in the camps face overcrowding, high levels of unemployment, and a lack of school and public infrastructure. Movement is restricted and travel permits are hard to obtain, leaving many refugees unable to access the resources they need. Food insecurity is widespread, with many families struggling to support themselves on extremely low income.

Palestinian Refugees in Jordan

More than two million Palestinian refugees live in Jordan. Due to statelessness, psychological trauma, interrupted education and poverty, many of these refugees lack professional and educational opportunities. Access to healthcare is also limited, forcing many refugees to travel for treatment or forgo care altogether.

Providing Tools for Success in Palestinian Refugee Camps

Many of our programs in Lebanon are based in Palestinian refugee camps, and some of our staff live in the camps themselves. We work with community-based organizations to determine the most pressing issues and respond with long-term solutions.

In Palestine and Lebanon, Anera is installing greenhouse gardens on rooftops in Palestinian refugee camps. These gardens provide a measure of food security and fresh produce amid spiraling inflation, well as supplemental income from the sale of excess harvests. Less tangibly but no less meaningfully, these rooftop crops are a space for refugees separated from their lands to reconnect with the soil.

In Jordan, Anera is delivering medical aid and other support to residents of Gaza Camp, where they face high rates of acute and chronic diseases.

Anera also works with partners to implement an after-school program in Jordan that provides donated laptops preloaded with education software to help refugee students and other vulnerable children develop their digital education and skills.

How It Works

  • Building Community

    Anera gives young people the chance to socialize and let off steam in safety through sports programs that range from football tournaments to dabke classes. We build fields, renovate playgrounds and train coaches in conflict management. Community service days, volunteer-led clean-up projects and youth-focused health campaigns bring people together to share in joyful experiences.

  • Educating Youth and Teaching Job Skills

    Through non-formal education, we’re filling major gaps in camp schooling. Our non-formal courses help out-of-school youths learn math, literacy and computer basics. Through vocational training and scholarships, Anera helps students attain the skills they need to get jobs as preschool teachers, mechanics, electricians, hairdressers, nurses, and in many other fields – so they can earn a decent income.

  • Medicines and Health Messages

    For decades, Anera has been delivering antibiotics, chronic diseases medicines, wheelchairs, hospital mattresses, hearing aids and more to charitable medical centers in Palestinian refugee camps. Our community health days and longer-term public health campaigns also teach important messages about nutrition, menstrual health, and preventing infections through good hygiene practices.

  • Relief and Rebuilding

    Following conflict escalations Anera mobilizes to respond quickly, delivering assistance to local health facilities and assessing the priority needs of the community. Since 2011, thousands of Palestinian refugees from Syria moved into the overburdened Palestinian camps. In situations like this when essential needs increase, Anera provides humanitarian relief in the form of hygiene kits, emergency lamps and winter clothes. In the aftermath of destructive conflicts, we help rebuild.

With a population of 30,000, Nahr El Bared camp in North Lebanon faces many challenges. Anera began working in the camp after it was nearly destroyed by armed conflict in 2007.