WASHINGTON, 20 September 2005 — ANERA, the Washington-based American Near East Refugee Aid organization, held its annual banquet here over the weekend, pledging to raise more money than ever to bankroll its projects that help Palestinians.
The group has been helping Palestinian children dream for a better life since it was founded in 1967. Anera (www.anera.org) has worked with 3.2 million Palestinians under occupation, 60 percent of whom live below the poverty line on less than $2 dollars a day. Last year alone, Anera distributed over $13 million in medical and relief supplies, including daily nutritional snacks to preschoolers.
“Anera is one of the few organizations consistently trying to do positive things on the ground in the Palestinian areas. Other organizations come and go, but they’ve been at this since the ‘60s, as a force for positive stability,” said a former World Bank official at Anera’s annual banquet on Friday.
“Anera works to create stability and jobs,” said Anera’s president, Peter Gubser. “We believe Palestinians deserve a good life just like any other human being on the face of the earth, and Anera funds projects in Gaza and elsewhere to make it happen,” said Gubser.
One of Anera’s many successful projects is the distribution of fortified milk and biscuits to malnourished children in the occupied territories.
“Several years ago, we noticed malnutrition and a lack of essential nutrients among Palestinian youth was a real problem. Anera designed a program two years ago to give fortified milk and fortified biscuits to 15,000 preschool children throughout Gaza — from Rafaa in the south to Bait Lahia in the north.”
Gubser said the reason for the malnutrition is due to the lack of employment by income earners in Palestinian families due to the “Israeli response to the intifada, which caused tremendously high unemployment during the last three years.”
“Due to the unemployment, families did not have sufficient money to buy nutritional food for their families.”
“Next year, Anera hopes to expand the program to 100,000 Palestinian children in public schools, from first grade through sixth grade,” said Anera’s president. “This means many more children will be able to develop, physically and mentally, into productive adults who will be able to contribute to their families and Palestinians society.”
But Anera is doing more than looking after nutritional needs of the young. It is also educating and creating job opportunities. “Six years ago, Anera created high-level information technology centers at three universities in the West Bank: El Quds University, the Palestinian Polytechnic University in Hebron, and the Arab American University in Jenin. At each of these universities, Anera helped establish IT centers where new graduates and people from the communities are taught to develop software, design web pages, do computer networking and other high-level computer skills.
“Anera intends to do a similar project in Gaza as soon as it raises the funds to do so. I’ve got an application in four different places in the US and the Arab world; someone is going to come through for us,” said Gubser optimistically.
Anera’s annual banquet was attended by 400 Americans, all donors to Anera.
“Anera’s supporters are Christian, Muslim and Jewish Americans, which shows that many, many Americans care for the welfare of Palestinians, as well as other Arabs, as Anera also works in refugee camps in Lebanon and Jordan,” said Gubser.
“Americans show they care by writing checks to us so that we can carry out our social and economic development programs as well as our welfare activities in the Middle East,” he added.
