Gaza: ACTED’s Emergency Assistance for families to meet their needs

The population of the Gaza strip is approximately 2.1 million people. It’s one of the most densely populated areas in the world with almost 5800 individuals per square kilometer.

Like an overwhelming part of the population in Gaza, Layla and her family could not meet some of their most basic needs, and needed urgent humanitarian relief.

With the help of ACTED, Layla was able to improve her family’s living situation and obtain some of her household’s basic necessities.

Layla lives in the Gaza strip and is the sole provider for her family of eight. Her husband suffers from epilepsy and clinical depression, and is therefore unable to provide for his household. Layla is a daily worker and works as a housekeeper a few days a week to support her family while her eldest son, who has finished school, works for three dollars a day on average to support them as well.

Despite Layla’s best effort to support her family, the poor economic state of Gaza does not offer many opportunities to enhance the purchasing power of her household. Following her husband’s diagnosis, her family could no longer afford basic necessities, such as food and clothing. Layla was unable to pay her daughter’s university tuition fees and could not purchase medication for her husband.

Her household mainly relied on governmental assistance which is not consistent. Families in need often have to go through prolonged periods without assistance. The escalation in May 2021 worsened her situation even more, as she could not work and lost her daily income. During this period, she had to take on debts to enable her family to meet their necessities. In this context, ACTED’s intervention in partnership with The Crisis and Support Centre of the Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs helped this family and many others to improve their living situation.

In May 2021, ACTED started implementing a project that aims at reducing the most negative impacts of the recent hostilities on vulnerable Palestinian communities in the Gaza Strip.

This project has provided food parcels to 200 households, non-food item kits to 138 households, cash assistance to 183 households, and water assistance to 625 households. This project addressed the most crucial needs of the most impacted households in the area.

This project provided Layla with the means to obtain some of her family’s requirements. This intervention helped Layla to pay off some of her household debts that she had notably accumulated during the last escalation, buy household necessities such as food, kitchenware, medication for her husband as well as winter clothes and shoes for her children. Additionally, this action helped her acquire some material to repair the ceiling of her daughter’s bedroom. The most influential impact of this project was helping Layla pay for her eldest daughter’s university tuition fees; she paid two deposits to the university and purchased some essential university supplies for her.