Gaza students receive boost to support education

Gaza students receive boost to support their commitment to education

GAZA CITY, 08 February 2005 -- About 10,000 children in impoverished areas in the Gaza Strip today received a boost in the form of educational supplies to support their commitment to education.

“There are many children in schools affected by the conflict or in marginalized areas where basic educational supplies are really needed,” says the UNICEF Special Representative in occupied Palestinian territory (oPt), Dan Rohrmann. “The children are very committed to pursuing education and we would like to ensure that the commitment is supported through the provision of these basic materials.”

Included in the School-in-a-Box kits are exercise books, pencils, erasers, plastic cubes for counting and other materials needed by Grades One to Four to boost efforts to ensure educational activities continue in an innovative manner. It also consists of a set of teaching aids that help teachers carry out hands on training, making teaching more pedagogical and participatory.

The distribution today also included supplies for some 800 children given through the psychosocial emergency team in Khan Younis, an area seriously affected by the crisis most recently. In addition, educational supplies were given for some 10,000 children to the Ministry of Education and Higher Education (MOEHE) for use in emergency responses throughout Gaza.

UNICEF’s emergency action receives support from many donors - Arab Gulf Fund (Agfund), Austria, Belgium, Canada, European Commission Humanitarian Office (ECHO), Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden and the United States. Additionally, a Tunisian non-governmental organization ‘Children First’ and several UNICEF National Committees - including the French, German, Italian, Japanese, Spanish and United Kingdom. UNICEF’s emergency actions in oPt would not take place at this scale if it were not for their voluntary support.

UNICEF – the world’s most influential advocate for children - has been working to improve the situation of children and women in oPt since the early 1980s. Go to: www.unicef.org/oPt.

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