Gaza Emergency Relief Fund

My name's Sara Azmoudeh, and I'm a Communications Coordinator at Rebuilding Alliance. I recently interviewed Site Engineer Heba to learn about her work as part of Rebuilding Alliance's Gaza Emergency Relief Fund.

Last fall, Engineer Heba joined Rebuilding Alliance to expand the Gaza Emergency Relief Fund to help more families in Gaza make their meager homes liveable. Born and raised in Gaza, Palestine, she is an architectural site engineer with a bachelor's degree in architecture from the Islamic University of Gaza and has experience in construction supervision. Engineer Heba came highly recommended by a Gaza architect who is currently a fellow at Harvard. 

This project requires special skill: the ability to stick to a very tight budget while spec'ing construction solutions that meet the family’s needs. Eng. Heba works with all four of Rebuilding Alliance's NGO partners, traveling from the North to the South of Gaza to do this. 

From January to March, Heba worked with two of Rebuilding Alliance's partner organizations, the Women Programs Center — Rafah (WPC-R), and the Youth Vision Society (YVS), to refurbish eight homes. Here are the WPC-R project highlights:

• Mr. Abed's family consists of 8 individuals, one of whom suffers from liver disease. Our team was able to complete all of the home repairs the family requested, including repairing the leaky kitchen roof. 
  
  
• Mrs. Sharifa's family of four needed fundamental re-working done to their kitchen and bathroom and new windows and doors to help them cope with Gaza's hot summers and cold winters. Heba worked with YVS to spec the bids then signed-off after local contractors completed plastering and tiling, installing the sink mixer and washbasin in their bathroom and kitchen, painting the walls and repairing electrical wiring.
  
  
• Single mother Mrs. Maha and her two children had a newly constructed home that was incomplete, and so the family had yet to move in. Eng. Heba identified what was needed: tiling installation, aluminum windows, and an aluminum door for the restroom. The work was complete in just six days!
  
  
• In March, Eng. Heba upgraded a home for a 28-year-old woman who has Multiple Sclerosis (MS), a rare debilitating disease of the brain and the central nervous system. She lives with her mother and father on the upper floor of the house, and her married brothers live on the ground floor. When Eng. Heba first met with her, she gave her lots of time to speak about herself and describe her needs. Based on her assessment, our whole team concluded that she needed support both physically and mentally. In addition to home renovations, our partners at the Al Amal Center for Rehabilitation provides transit and services so that the young woman vists twice weekly to participate in a variety of activities. In Heba's words, "Before our intervention, she could not move around her home freely or use her bathroom because no aspect of it was fit for disabled persons. We spent a lot of time designing a bathroom for her unique needs and added grab rails for her to move around her home more easily."
  
  She went on to say, "This case is exceptional. Redesigning her home improved her physical well-being and her mental well-being. Having the ability to move around her home independently has given her new confidence. When I first met her, she seemed like a quiet, timid woman. Now, I know that's far from true; whenever I see her, she has a story to tell me and plans to share."

With YVS, four family homes located in Gaza's Al-Shati Refugee Camp (also known as Beach Camp) were refurbished.  The matriarch of the Ali family told Eng. Heba that she needs to reconstruct her home because "we suffer from many issues including darkness, dampness, and cracks in the walls." Eng. Heba signed-off on YVS's work as they installed new bathroom and kitchen essentials including granite counter tops, sinks, and fixtures, plastered, painted, and tiled.

Thank you for supporting Heba's incredible work though the Gaza Emergency Relief Fund. I will leave you all with something Heba told me during our call that motivates my mission to empower her work in Gaza. I hope you will feel the same: 

"When I meet the families and learn of their experiences, it is all deeply personal. These families are part of me. We often live in the same city; we are part of one community. I try my best to make them happy and support them. Even though I know my help won't satisfy all their many needs, our help goes a long way."

Until next time,