Gaza: Refugee Protection International (RPI) and long-time Middle East partner charity Kids Paradise (KP) have aided over 75,000 primarily women and children in Gaza’s displacement camps to receive cooked food, water, and insecticide thanks to our giving partners and community volunteers spearheaded by KP’s Malak Fada and Nour AlNajjar. 12 RPI-funded community kitchens were set up by the KP Malak Fund in Rafah, were hot meals were cooked and delivered daily to internally displaced persons (IDPs). Following the May 6th internal evacuation orders issued to civilians in eastern Rafah by the Israeli Defense Forces, these 12 community kitchens were relocated and consolidated to ruins of Khan Younis in the northern part of Al-Mawasi, where Malak, Nour, and other volunteers in our joint program continue to cook and assist Gaza’s civilian population. Al-Mawasi is the Israeli-declared “humanitarian zone” although it has little to any potable water, latrines, or protection from the sun. Diseases are on the rise, as is the risk of starvation. Please donate to support continued food provisions (rice, beans, lentils and other fresh vegetables and proteins), as well as water tanks and insecticide for the IDP camps.  As of July 1, 2024, over $476,000 in donations being used toward Gaza relief have been raised, including by the generous GoFundMe community. Yet renewed displacement following July 1 Israeli evacuation orders for people in east Khan Younis will put pressure on our joint community kitchen to serve an ever growing displaced population. Please help by donating to our latest PayPal campaign or through GoFundMe.

Funded by RPI, KP has also provided emergency multi-purpose cash assistance (EMPCA) for highly vulnerable civilians in Gaza, such as women and children with disabilities and medical needs. While this aid was originally intended to support access to medical needs, and other lifesaving support, the May 6th evacuation orders made it necessary to reallocate this funding to support civilians to flee (sometimes for the 7th time) from Rafah to the Israeli-declared humanitarian zone in Al-Mawasi, despite the lack of sufficient water, sewage, food and medicines in the overcrowded zone. Any future EMPCA will see all selected participants cross-checked against inter-agency aid lists for deduplication with other EMPCA and Cash for Work activities. If possible, RPI may also support mental health providers on both sides of the Gaza-Israel conflict, particularly for women and children who have experienced tremendous violence.

Syria Regional Humanitarian Crisis: In 2019, RPI co-designed a self-reliance program with Turkey-based partner Kids Paradise whose key components continue today. These include livelihoods skills training (amigurumi, soap production) and psychosocial support (PSS) for war-displaced Syrian women and relief and PSS support for displaced children. RPI expanded self-reliance collaboration to refugee-led partner Multi Aid Programs (MAPS), which had a similar program serving Syrian refugees in Lebanon, and to Ukrainian partner The Way Home Odessa Charity in 2023.

RPI has sold a quarter million USD in primarily refugee-made products in this program, as well as some donated crafts from 70 artists around the globe. This humanitarian cash-for-work program supports women’s income and training stipends with community-based partners. In Lebanon, the program also supports non-formal primary education in the Syrian refugee camps, and in northern Syria it also supports hygiene supplies for displaced children through our Turkey-led refugee-led partner. After the 2023 Turkey-Syria earthquakes, these efforts were expanded.

Turkey-Syria Earthquake: RPI aided its community-led partners to assist over 21,093 earthquake survivors in Syria (Idlib, Aleppo regions) and Turkey (Kahramanmaras, Antakya, Reyhanli, Gaziantep regions) in the initial weeks after the Feb 2023 earthquakes. Over 12,874 persons received RPI-supported emergency food aid or winter clothing thanks to our Turkey-based refugee-led partners Kids Paradise and Olive Branch NGO. Earthquake aid went to Syrian and Turkish survivors. We have since supported PSS for quake survivors through rapid response health and nutrition teams in northwest Syria with our Turkey-based refugee-led partner HIA and expanded the livelihoods program with KP.

Ukraine: RPI helps Ukrainian civilians escape war’s southeastern frontlines in Mykolaiv, Kherson, rural Zaporizhzhia region, and further east. RPI procures and delivers minibuses and large vehicles to assist its Ukrainian charity partners to launch or expand civilian evacuations. In many cases, RPI also supports relief items and fuel. Evacuations are critical. RPI has seen firsthand the medical consequences for children unable to flee occupied villages. Challenges include war-damaged vehicles, Russian military checkpoints, active hostilities, access to affordable diesel, and fear.

By August, 2022 this program had already evacuated some 2,000+ Ukrainian civilians to the borders of Moldava and Romania. Beginning in March 2022, RPI also helped coordinate and fully fund the medical evacuations of 53 surrogate infants from central Ukraine to their foreign biological parents on the western border with Romania. This initiative was coordinated with the key involvement of Ukrainian partners BioTexCom, Dobrobut Medical Center, whose nursing team and daring drivers made the evacuation runs, the receiving Chernivtsi Regional Clinical Hospital, and with Romanian consular authorities, who helped parents secure the birth certificates and travel documents needed for the infants to cross the border. NBC Boston, CBS Channel 4, Belmont Journal, WGBH Boston, and NewsNation’s Morning in America Show covered these evacuation efforts.

RPI remains deeply concerned for the emotional well-being of Ukraine’s children. RPI has visited pediatric inpatients being treated for PTSD, panic disorders, and general anxiety due to the war. Some had sheltered underground as their evacuation train was shelled, killing its conductor. Others heard relentless explosions and shelling in the devastated cities of southeastern Ukraine. Add to this the stress of displacement, continued air raid sirens, and frequent separation from family members, and the situation is dire. RPI will support Ukrainian charities and hospitals to deliver psychosocial and psychiatric support to children and youth.

Earlier Support in the Middle East: Since late 2015, RPI has also helped to address the protection crises experienced by conflict-affected Syrian civilians through RPI’s refugee-led partners based in neighboring countries. Inside Syria, children have experienced relentless exposure to aerial bombardment and shelling and loss of loved ones. In neighboring countries, Syrian refugees have fled to urban centers or informal settlements to earn a livelihood. Yet, too often they lack the civil documentation, skills training, and support needed to access decent work, housing, and public services, leaving children at risk of child labor, early marriage, and mental health issues. In Sanliurfa, Turkey, RPI co-designed the partner-run 2-year counseling, case management and legal awareness program for Syrian refugees in need of temporary protection documentation and other support in order to access host country services. RPI co-designed launched a similar partner-run program in Lebanon that assisted Syrian refugee children born in Lebanon to obtain a legal status, e.g. 4-step birth certificate, and better access education and health services. RPI has also enabled partner-run psychosocial support (PSS) and mental health care in Antakya, Turkey and PSS in Syria.

In sum, RPI and its grassroots partners have met 62,769 protection and self-reliance needs (excluding ongoing Gaza relief) by: