Days Like These Saturday 20th September
Billy Bragg has announced ‘Days Like These’, a fundraising evening of music, spoken word and film for Amos Trust’s Gaza appeal at O2 Shepherd’s Bush Empire in London on Saturday 20th September. Full details.
DSPR (aka NECC) was launched in 1952 to serve the 198,000 Palestinian refugees in Gaza following the formation of the state of Israel (Nakba) — today, that number is over 1.9 million.
DSPR has developed three areas of specialism: early years and maternal health, training and equipping young people with employment skills and providing psychosocial trauma support to children, parents and young people in their training centres.
DSPR
(Also known as NECC)
Amos has partnered with DSPR’s youth training and psychosocial programmes since 2011, as youth unemployment was so high due to the Israeli Blockade of Gaza that had begun in 2007 and because young people saw such little hope for the future.
Before 7th October 2023, DSPR had four technical and vocational training centres in carpentry, metalwork, electrical engineering, solar power and refrigeration, alongside courses in advanced dressmaking, secretarial studies, office management and Gaza’s first women-only graphic design course. English language teaching, specialist mentoring into employment and psychological support was provided to all students.
Following the 2008/9 war on Gaza, Operation Cast Lead, DSPR started providing psychosocial trauma support to children, parents and young people for the post-traumatic stress that was evident among so much of the population.
Ongoing trauma
Initially set up as a temporary response, they soon realised that the living conditions in Gaza and frequent attacks meant that they had to provide this as a continuous specialised service to address ongoing trauma. They set up play therapy programmes for children and groups, including 1:1 support programmes for parents (and families).
At the start of the war in October 2023, DSPR had to close all their health, psychosocial support and training centres as they were in areas targeted by the Israeli assault. They opened a health and trauma support unit for women and children in Rafah that treated 28,000 people and provided psychosocial support to 15,000 children, their families and bereaved mothers.
Following the Israeli assault on Rafah, DSPR opened a mobile health clinic, providing treatment to 260 people a day. Later, they converted a wedding hall in central Gaza into a new medical centre, which also provides a base for their trauma support work with women and children.
In Gaza City, staff dug out equipment from their bombed-out health centres and used it to create temporary medical centres from which they also offer trauma support to children.
Take a look through our range of resources, blog posts, downloads and products to find out more about our Palestine Justice work.
Following the 2014 Gaza War and decades of oppression and resistance, the storytelling platform We Are Not Numbers (WANN) was founded to give a voice to the youth of Gaza. In a rallying cry to onlookers around the world, WANN’s new book offers unparalleled insight into the real lives of the people of Gaza and imagines where we might go from here.
Our partner in Gaza, Al Alhi Arab Hospital, is now running as an emergency centre undertaking 20-35 operations a day with 150 inpatients. It is now the only outpatient hospital and general medical facility serving a vast part of Gaza City. Read our full Al Ahli Hospital update.
Amos Trust’s On Location exhibition introduces leading visual artists from Gaza and explores the motivations, frustrations and realities of being artists under siege. This 62-page, full-colour coffee table catalogue of the collection is printed on 200-gram silk art board and is the perfect gift for the art lover in your life.
In 2009, all the main Palestinian churches came together to form Kairos Palestine. Their campaign has enjoyed recent success with the Quakers, URC and Methodists. Now see how you can become involved with Sabeel-Kairos in pressing denominations to change and with the wider work undertaken.
Israel overtly uses culture as a form of propaganda to justify its apartheid policies and occupation of the Palestinian territories. Palestinian anti-apartheid activists have called on international artists, writers, cultural institutions and those who work for them to join the cultural boycott of Israel.
Amos Trust
7 Bell Yard, London
WC2A 2JR
UK
Telephone:
+44 (0) 203 725 3493
Email:
[email protected]
Registered Charity No.
1164234
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