Footprints Project
Since 2005, travelers like you have helped us change the world through micro-donations.
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A total of
3924
Travelers
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donated
$30001.79
(100% funded) -
to help improve
Health
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impacting
100000
people -
in
Palestinian Territory
Project background
Since violence escalated in Israel and occupied Palestinian Territory on 7 October 2023 more than 14,100 of Gaza’s 1.1 million children have been killed. Home, hospitals, and schools have been destroyed. Children have played no part in this conflict, yet they are the worst affected.
In Gaza, an estimated 80% of the population was already reliant on international aid to survive and access basic services. 1 in 3 people across the region were already facing severe levels of food insecurity. Now those needs have intensified, with families struggling to get enough food, water, fuel, and medical care.
The knock-on impacts of this escalation will be felt across the region, with more families forced to flee their homes and seek safety. Children’s lives and futures are at risk.
Key project activities
Our teams have been working around the clock to get vital supplies to families in Gaza – including drinking water, food, hygiene products, mattresses, blankets, learning, shelter kits, toys, and games. Our local partners inside Gaza continue to distribute these supplies across shelters and household, while we explore options to reach more children and families through direct delivery. We are providing mental health and psychosocial support to children and their families and delivering cash to families to help them buy essentials.
Our Emergency Health Unit is in Gaza, supporting a partner field hospital in Al-Mawasi. Save the Children is providing maternal and newborn care in the maternity unit and paediatric inpatient and outpatient services in the hospitals.
The Emergency Health Unit is also running the Primary Health Clinic in Deir Al-Balah, providing health services such as the management of communicable and non-communicable diseases, sexual and reproductive health services, ante-natal care and management of urgent deliveries, basic trauma care and wound dressing, and mental health and psychosocial support. They also provide malnutrition screening and treatment for children and have established a mother and baby area where women can breastfeed in private and receive information on feeding infants and young children in emergencies.
Key project outcomes.
As of 5 June 2024, Save the children has reached over 799,010 people, including over 396,181 children. This includes 779,376 people (385,415 children) in the Gaza Strip and 19,634 people (10,766 children) in the West Bank.
The Save the Children Gaza Appeal, to which Footprints Network and others have donated, has achieved the following:
- We have distributed:
- 274,767 water bottles
- 112,070 personal hygiene kits
- 7267 dignity kits
- 3,948 winter shelter kits
- 104,567 food baskets
- 4,400 learning kits
- 14,548 recreational kits
- 1,811 baby kits
- 2,280 blankets
- 11,269 non-food items
- 2,858 vouchers
- 40,000 family hygiene kits.
- We have reached more than 15.8k families (households) with cash assistance.
- At the partner field hospital in Al-Mawasi, since establishing the maternity unit in April, Save the Children has provided more than 900 consultations – including ante-natal and post-natal care for women – and supported the delivery of 46 babies. Through the paediatric inpatient and outpatient services, we have treated children with severe blast injuries and burns, conducted surgeries, resuscitated critically ill patients, provided post-operative care for children and on-the-job training for more than 160 healthcare workers.
- We have treated more than 4,500 patients at the Primary Health Clinic in Al-Balah since it opened in May.
Community involvement
We currently work with 15 partner organisations (11 in Gaza, 5 in the West Bank) who provide support to children and families impacted by the conflict. Their local knowledge is vital in our response as they have a deep understanding of the contextual challenges and specific needs of children in the region. Their involvement includes our local partners distributing supplies to shelters and households; local staff to keep 20 shelters clean in the middle governate of Gaza; and the partner field hospital in Al-Mawasi.
What’s next?
Our work in occupied Palestinian Territory continues, as the region faces huge and growing humanitarian need. Ongoing violence, forced displacement and restricted aid access means 96% of the population face acute food shortages, with more than 495,000 people facing starvation.
Save the Children stands ready to scale up our support to children when access becomes available. An immediate and definitive ceasefire and unfettered humanitarian access is the only way to save lives in Gaza and avoid famine.
Our upcoming aims include:
- Opening 10 more child-friendly spaces providing mental health and psychosocial support for children, in addition to the current five.
- Establishing seven Nutrition Points to screen children for malnutrition and provide infant and young child feeding support to pregnant and breastfeeding mothers, in addition to the current six.
- Continued distribution of essential including water, hygiene kits, food and basic shelter kits.
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