Through UPA, sponsors from around the world give financial support to Palestinian children at reputable orphanages, schools, and other welfare institutions. Sponsorship funds are administered by UPA's trusted partner organizations in the West Bank, Gaza, and refugee camps of Lebanon. As of 2009, donations received by our partners must be pre-approved to go towards a project to benefit all the sponsored children in their care. This will provide extra transparency to the program.  

The main goals of UPA's Community Development Program are to protect those most vulnerable from devastating poverty, and to sustain community development by reinforcing economic self-reliance, strengthening human resources, and providing social services to all communities in need. UPA's Community Development projects help provide job training, health education, literacy education, physical rehabilitation, and sports, culture and recreation. 

UPA works with local schools, orphanages, vocational training centers, and universities in an effort to help strengthen the Palestinian educational system. The school system in the West Bank and Gaza Strip is underdeveloped due to years of occupation and neglect.

Students and teachers must contend with overcrowded classrooms, rundown buildings and facilities, outdated curricula, and inadequate training for teachers, in addition to school closures and restrictions on movement for students and staff. A growing population and limited finances present further obstacles to improving the educational system for Palestinian youth. 

Since its establishment, UPA has attempted to address the dual nature of problems facing the Palestinian health care system--a severely underdeveloped health system operating in the context of chronic poverty and chronic low-level war with Israel. The Palestinian medical community can barely meet the needs of West Bank and Gaza Strip patients for lack of financial and technical resources. Many families cannot afford meat or fresh fruits and vegetables and consequently, 20 percent of children, five and under, suffered from acute or chronic malnutrition in 2003 and 20 percent of Palestinian women from anemia as well.