Palestinian children aim high to get UNRWA urgent funds

School children fly kites carrying the hashtag 'dignity is priceless' to highlight the dire situation in Gaza

by Mohammed Asad

UNRWA’s school children in the besieged Gaza Strip have appealed to the world to help tackle the organisation’s financial funding crisis.

School children in an UNRWA institute flew kites carrying the hashtag “dignity is priceless” to highlight the dire situation which they are in as a result of the cut in donor funding faced by the international body.

Many UNRWA services are under threat as a result of lack of funds while its employees have been told contracts for temporary workers will not be renewed.

Gaza-based UNRWA spokesperson, Adnan Abu Hasna said the agency would hold the most important conference in its history on Thursday.

“UNRWA has extended invitations to donors, members of the Advisory Committee and the Secretary-General of the United Nations to attend the important conference, with the aim of recruiting all means of support for the agency in light of the huge financial deficit it is experiencing,” he said.

Read: UNRWA services reduction start to bite

Last month, the UNRWA Commissioner General Pierre Krähenbühl launched the “Dignity is Priceless” campaign to collect funds from donor countries around the world, but it was met with a weak response.

The campaign was launched after the US announced that it had slashed $65 million of its $120 million annual payment for the international organisation.

UNRWA provides relief and humanitarian support for more than five million Palestinian refugees living in the Palestinian territories (the West Bank and Gaza Strip) and refugee camps in Jordan, Lebanon and Syria. The Agency was established in 1949 following the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories in 1948, one of whose tragic consequences was the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their towns and villages.