HAP Update: Malak goes to school

We are all excited that Malak was discharged from the hospital and has gone into first grade, like any normal girl. At home, she continues to work-out on her knee, for which purpose we got her a bicycle which she must ride daily. It’s a struggle for her, but this is the best physiotherapy in her case. She is also wearing special garments, which place pressure on her scars. She will have to wear these for a while, so that the scars don’t grow. We are sure she will do very well in school, since she is a very smart little girl.

“The most meaningful thing that happened to me this year”

We are helping another little girl, this time from Jenin.
She needs a heart operation: in medical language she is suffering from a small perimembranous VSD and an unexplained left ventricular hypertrophy and dilatation. Her name is Battol Jaloudi and she is four and a half. We will tell you more about her and her family soon. We thought to go and visit them but this is impossible at present, so we will meet them at the hospital when they come.

We learned about this girl through the representative of the Japanese Government in Gaza. He was in the village, working with the School for Peace director on a proposal for a project that will bring university students from Palestine and Israel for dialogue, when suddenly he began to speak of a phone call he received that same morning from a father in Jenin who is looking for help for his little girl. It depressed him that although he is in charge of great sums of money for buildings, educational projects, equipment etc. he is powerless when it comes to saving the life of one little girl.

We moved quickly and by the next morning we had the girl’s medical documents, consulted with doctors, checked with committee members and made our decision to help. The family has found a donation of $5000, and we promised $5,500, which is the sum that is needed.

Battol’s father called and thanked the Japanese representative for his help with the connection to NSWAS. He was in shock, since as a diplomat, he had never experienced such quick action: “It was the most meaningful thing that happened to me this year”, he wrote.

The German Friends’ Association is helping us find support for equipment for the clinics in Media and Budrus. These two villages have empty clinics. We made a list of elementary equipment and hopefully there will be support for that.

Please help us with donations, as you see, there is a lot of work that we can do - together.