Gaza Strip

Providing Support in a Volatile Area, People in Need Implements Psychosocial Project in Gaza

On March 31, 2010, People in Need (PIN) completed a three-month pilot psychosocial project in the Gaza Strip. With the aim to empower fieldworkers and to assess the feasibility of expanding PIN operations to the volatile territory, the project provided training to twenty-two local psychosocial workers.

n December 2008, Israel launched a 22-day military campaign, titled “Operation Cast Lead,” which resulted in the death of 1,383 Palestinians - 350 which were identified by OCHA as children, 5,303 wounded, and damage to around 60,000 homes. As a result of the ongoing blockade and military campaigns, the economic situation in Gaza remains dire.

Since early January 2009, PIN’s Middle East Mission, based in Amman, Jordan, began closely monitoring the deteriorating humanitarian situation. Concerned about the lasting impact the violence is having on Gaza's population and drawing from its experience and resources providing similar support to Iraqi refugees in Jordan, PIN decided to focus on the area of psychosocial support. In late 2010, with the assistance of CARE International, PIN obtained access to the Gaza strip and sent two of its staff members to conduct the assessment trip and launch the project. 

Surveys have shown that even before the latest conflict, children and their caregivers faced high levels of recurrent nightmares, depression and anxiety linked to prolonged exposure to violence and fear. Therefore, PIN has decided to support existing psychosocial programs by building capacity of local fieldworkers and enable them to provide their beneficiaries with better coping skills to help them deal with the ongoing violence and instability. Psychosocial workers from nine community based organizations attended a comprehensive training in stress management, crisis intervention, counseling skills, international guidelines for working in a crisis situation, individual and community resilience and others.