UNRWA + Palestine refugees
Working as an independent nonprofit organization, UNRWA USA National Committee (known as UNRWA USA) supports the humanitarian work of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) through fundraising, advocacy, and community engagement in the United States.
UNRWA
UNRWA stands for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East and is a UN agency established by the General Assembly in 1949 with a mandate to provide humanitarian assistance and protection to registered Palestine refugees in the Agency's area of operations, namely the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, the Gaza Strip, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria, pending a just and lasting solution to their plight.
Thousands of Palestine refugees who lost both their homes and livelihood because of the Nakba (“catastrophe” in Arabic) have remained displaced and in need of significant support for over 70 years.
UNRWA helps Palestine refugees achieve their full potential in human development through quality services it provides in education, health care, relief and social services, protection, camp infrastructure and improvement, microfinance and emergency assistance:
UNRWA runs over 700 schools, educating over half a million girls and boys in the region's largest and one of the highest-achieving school systems.
UNRWA operates 143 primary health clinics, with 8.4 million annual patient visits.
UNRWA provides food assistance to more than 1 million food-insecure refugees.
UNRWA protects over 1 million refugees living in Syria and the occupied Palestinian territory.
UNRWA economically empowers men, women, and youth through vocational training and has awarded more than 475,905 microfinance loans.
UNRWA is funded almost entirely by voluntary contributions from UN Member States, including the United States government.
Why UNRWA?
Experienced: UNRWA is the largest and one of the oldest service providers to Palestine refugees.
Direct service-provider: Among UN agencies, UNRWA is unique as it is the only agency that does not use third-party contractors.
Self-empowerment: Over 90% of UNRWA’s staff of nearly 30,000 are registered Palestine refugees themselves.
Responsive: UNRWA has the biggest operational footprint and emergency response in Gaza and Syria.
Trusted: UNRWA follows all UN guidelines regarding neutrality and funding.
Palestine Refugees
Palestine refugees are defined as “persons whose normal place of residence was Palestine during the period 1 June 1946 to 15 May 1948, and who lost both home and means of livelihood as a result of the 1948 conflict.”
Palestine refugees are one of the longest-lasting cases of forced migration in modern history.
Scattered over the Middle East, Palestine refugees have experienced extremes in violence, suffering, and injustice. Today, more than 5 million Palestine refugees face daunting human development and protection challenges that threaten to arrest their significant potential.
Nearly one-third of registered Palestine refugees, more than 1.5 million individuals, live in 58 recognized Palestine refugee camps in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, the Gaza Strip, and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.
In 2019, more than 5.6 million refugees were registered with UNRWA, making up 20% of the world’s 26.6 million refugees.
Most Palestine refugees have nowhere else to turn to for assistance and protection but UNRWA.
Despite the horrors they've endured and the challenges they face, Palestine refugees are mothers, fathers, children, students who dream of a better future, business owners with hope for a better life, teachers, farmers, and fishermen. They want to laugh, spend time with their families, and live in dignity, just like everyone else.
Meet Imad - Syria "Music is divine and has a unique effect on the spirit...It is the first thing I turn to whenever I am feeling sad, happy, or disappointed.” Imad is an 'oud player, composer, conductor, and music teacher at an UNRWA school in Rif Damascus. He finds refuge in music. He uses music to help children and communities cope with and recover from trauma. You can listen to two of his compositions here: https://soundcloud.com/unrwa-communications/nostalgia https://soundcloud.com/unrwa-communications/hope
Meet Nour - Lebanon “Education is the only thing that determines my future.” Nour is a bright secondary student in Lebanon. She wants to be an ophthalmologist because of her own story; when she was six months old, Nour was injured in her left eye by fireworks that other children were playing with nearby during Eid celebrations.
Meet Madleen - Gaza Strip, oPt “The sea is my life, my job, my hobby, and the place where I can find myself.” Madleen is the only known fisherwoman in the Gaza Strip. She started fishing with her father when she was six years old.The Mediterranean Sea once provided a livelihood for some 8,000 families in Gaza. Today, with the Israeli-enforced fishing boundary, the industry has all but been annihilated. Fishermen/women can access less than one-third of the fishing areas allocated to them under the Oslo Agreements: only 6 out of 20 nautical miles. Working as a fisherman or woman is also dangerous. The Israeli navy regularly shoots at Palestinian boats that they consider having crossed the agreed fishing zone, sometimes resulting in injuries or death. But despite the difficulty catching fish in the restricted region, Madleen takes a boat out to sea each day.
Meet Maria - Jordan Maria is a diligent ninth-grader in Marka camp, Jordan, who spends four hours studying every day. When she grows up, Maria hopes to graduate from university and find employment in order to help her parents and live in a house with a garden.
Meet: Tareq - West Bank, oPt “We want to show the world that this land is not empty – that we live here, and show them how we Bedouin live a beautiful way of life that would be destroyed if we were forced to live in towns.” Tareq is a Bedouin Palestine refugee and one of the founders of the Sahari Desert Eco-Tourism initiative. Tareq and his business partner, Jamil, spend their days and nights leading visitors on hikes in the Jerusalem and Jericho areas.
Fadi Kiblawi is a lawyer based in Tokyo, Japan, and son of Nada Kiblawi. Nada is a Palestine refugee, a founding member of the UNRWA Alumni of North America, and a successful businesswoman. He is a contributing guest writer to the Voices of UNRWA blog, where he pays tribute to his mother and all Palestine refugee mothers in honor of Mother’s Day.