The following is adapted from an article on the Welfare Association's Web site (www.welfareassociation.org). A UPA partner, Welfare Association is a private, non-profit foundation established in Geneva in 1983 to support Palestinian society in sustainable development.

Welfare Association is providing 1,000 children in 13 kindergartens with daily hot meals for the next six months. The KGs are located in 5 geographic areas in the Gaza Strip.

This latest initiative is part of a $225,000 project funded through United Palestinian Appeal (UPA). The project has the dual benefit of providing basic food aid to the neediest in Gaza while also benefiting a starving economy. Food is purchased from local Palestinian producers and suppliers and distributed in the community.

More than 32,000 persons are directly benefiting from the program. In addition to the hot meals for 1,000 preschoolers, the program provided food packages for 5,000 needy families (30,000 individuals), and food supplies for 1,000 needy persons in orphanages and elderly homes.

The timely program addresses a situation that is deteriorating daily. About 75 percent of Gaza’s population of 1.5 million now lives in poverty, up more than 10 percent from this summer, according to Palestinian government officials in the West Bank. With unemployment topping 60 percent, a growing number of Palestinian children are roaming the streets of Gaza looking for a meager wage to help support their impoverished families.

According to the September 2007 report of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), the local market is experiencing shortages of an increasing number of basic food items – including fruits, fresh and frozen meat and fish, frozen vegetables, chicken, powdered milk, dairy products, beverages and cooking oil. The World Food Programme (WFP) has also reported significant increase in the cost of these items due to global price increases and tight restrictions on the import of goods into Gaza. In September, the cost of a chicken rose by 50% and a kilo of fresh meat rose by 25%.

Please see our Program News section to learn more about what UPA is doing to help the people of Gaza and learn how you can support our relief programs.