FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 17, 2022 

MEDIA CONTACT 
Laila Mokhiber, Director of Communications
laila@unrwausa.org

Sold Out Gaza 5K Raises Nearly $275k in Funding for Mental Health Care and Urgent Resources for Palestine Refugees 

The Bay Area race, organized by UNRWA USA, turned out hundreds to urge community awareness surrounding mental health and critical social services in the Gaza Strip

SAN MATEO, Calif. – UNRWA USA announced today that its Bay Area Gaza 5K raised nearly $275k after gathering over 800 attendees, including notable Palestinian advocates, innovators, students, and UNRWA leadership, united in support of mental health services and emergency relief for refugees in the Gaza Strip and other parts of the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt). 

Bay Area community members joined together to support children and youth in Gaza as part of a rising wave of activism in Silicon Valley supporting Palestinian human rights. Noteworthy attendees included Loay Elbasyouni, a former UNRWA student and current engineer on the NASA team who worked on the Mars rover Perseverance and the Ingenuity helicopter, Yousef Abuhashem, and Laila Abudahi, CTO and co-founder of Manara. The money raised for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) will go directly toward providing Palestine refugees with access to quality mental health care and humanitarian assistance through the employment of locally recruited refugee counselors. 

“If you think about a young person in Gaza, 15 years old, they've been through five military assaults in their short lifetime. So all the support today is essential for them to lead a better life,” said Mara Kronenfeld, Executive Director of UNRWA USA. “When we think about hope, we have to think about young people having an idea of a future, right? And a future's about getting a job. It's about having some sort of income-generating opportunity. We've been here in the Bay Area the last couple of days, talking to the tech industry about how we can expand remote job opportunities for a generation of Palestinians in Gaza.” 

With the 5K located in the Bay Area, the global hub for tech and software development, there was a common theme of expanding job opportunities with no borders and calling upon industry leaders to create remote professional opportunities for young people in Gaza.

Kaan Centinturk, Director of Information Management and Technology at UNRWA, led a passionate cry to place jobs in Gaza, stating that in Gaza, Palestine refugees “all want to be software engineers. They all want to be in it because, in it, there are no borders. And they can work in Gaza for anywhere in the world… Because the talent is there, the dedication is there.” 

Other UNRWA leadership, Palestinian professionals, and students shared remarks during various lead-up events and on stage at the 5K, urging attendees to support UNRWA’s life-saving work for Palestine refugees. Many highlighted the importance of uplifting Palestinian voices and supporting students impacted by the violence and trauma of occupation. 

Amal Khatib, Director of UNRWA Affairs in the UNRWA Gaza Field Office, spoke specifically to the pervasive challenges posed in classrooms, thanking attendees for gathering to dream of a better future: “You know that in a classroom, 40% of those children suffer from severe trauma. So it's actually continuous trauma…on behalf of the children and youth in Gaza, on behalf of the people of Gaza, thank you so much for being here today to come and dream with us for a better future for those people.” 

Since its inception, UNRWA USA has held the Gaza 5K in Washington, DC, New York City, and other major cities, including Chicago, Houston, San Francisco, and Orange County. 

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UNRWA USA is an independent nonprofit organization that provides support for the humanitarian work of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). UNRWA USA lifts up the voices, experiences, and humanity of Palestine refugees to secure American support for resources essential to every human being, for the promise of a better life. US taxpayers are eligible for tax deductions for donations made through UNRWA USA.