East Jerusalem YMCA Rehabilitation Program 2016 summary report

East Jerusalem YMCA Rehabilitation Program 2016 summary report

Another year has passed and the Palestinian people’s right to live safely and in dignity remains a fantasy. The occupation remains dominant on Palestinian lands and affects all aspects of people’s lives, explicitly seen in the escalation of violence witnessed in 2016 and the inherited disrespect to international law and accountability to violations by the occupier’s dominating regime.

The YMCA being the national premier emergency psychosocial response organization, continued to conduct emergency interventions in highly conflicted areas especially those within area C, near settlements, near the Segregation Wall, threatened by evacuation and demolition, etc. which reached 1556 in 2016 alone. In addition, the reporting period included conducting two focused interventions; one in Silwan within East Jerusalem, and another in H2 area in Hebron, where human rights violations are on the toll. To make sure that the interventions at the local communities level would have sustainable impact, local community leaders and volunteers received capacity building programs by YMCA staff in subjects of crisis intervention and psychological first aid, to make sure that the communities are able to respond to the repetitive emergencies they face whenever the YMCA teams are forbidden access to a certain area by the military. The YMCA has also made distinguished achievements at the level of psychosocial support as evident in the high number of individual and group counseling sessions which reached 8882 and number of direct beneficiaries which reached 819.

Click here to read the full summary report for 2016.